Scion Effect
by Arthur Hansen
Summary: Toni Shepard, N7 marine and tapped for security of the SSV Normandy. Everything was so much more simple before giant black armored dreadnaughts, killer robots and... one young girl that fell down a rabbit hole? Scionverse - Sidestory.
1. Meeting

Choking black smoke filled the air, even as the massive, black squid-like starship floated overhead. A coughing figure appeared, dashing towards a transport station. Her blue-green eyes studied the containers that were used for shipping, offices and even living quarters. Of course, at this point, there were also strange, robotic figures that seemed to be killing everyone. The young girl almost snarled silently as she pulled an embossed silver pistol from her empty waistband.

Derek Vanderbunt, one of the few remaining colonists of Eden Prime, scrambled back as the robot with the strange, tubular heads took a shot at him, kicking up dirt near his head. "God, no! Please, I'm no one! Don't hurt me!" He had just seen one of his friends impaled on a strange spike, kicking and screaming.

The geth staggered as bullets started to slam into his shield from behind. The 10mm bullets were striking far harder than any chemical slug-thrower had any right to, but really was only as effective as a mid-grade, modern Mass Effect pistol, discounting ammunition differences. The shooter's accuracy was very, very high, as the geth's head was turned to junk and it collapsed onto its front.

"Are you alright?" the young blonde asked as she ran up. She was a lithe, young woman, though tall for her age and wearing terribly archaic clothing; jeans, a baby blue T-shirt and running shoes.

"I'm fine now, but I'm going to hide in those crates-" The balding worker suddenly scrambled to hide behind a boulder as two more Geth tromped over quickly.

The girl followed him and started crawling quickly. "So night of the killer robots, huh?"

"Damn aliens! Where's the System Alliance fleet? We're supposed to be protected here," the man sobbed.

The Geth was just turning the corner when someone let off with a assault rifle in tight, controlled bursts. Its shields flared, then fell as the young girl started firing her pistol as she edged around the corner. The crack of her archaic pistol resounded up and down the rail platform, and surprised the trio of armor wearing marines.

"Survivors, sir!" Kaiden Alenko called out.

"Derek! Good to see you alive," a woman in colony standard light armor, Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams, called out.

"They almost got me. I think I was seconds away from being impaled on one of those spikes like the rest of my crew," the colonist said, pointing down towards the train depot where grotesque dead bodies were impaled on technospikes.

"What are these guys? Vlad the Impaler wannabes?" the young teen asked.

That was when the spikes retracted downwards, releasing the bodies. Glowing circuits could be seen within the bodies as they rose like macabre techno-zombies. Derek ran for cover even as the four armed humans opened fire on the dessicated husks that used to be humans. In very short order, they were blasted apart or exploded all over the landscape.

The woman in the middle of the armored group, wearing a customized scarlet and white special forces armor (labeled N7) glared at the dead monsters. "This will not be allowed to continue," She said, before turning to the two others, "I'm Commander Shepard. Are you two going to be all right now?"

"Yeah, I can hide for a bit until reinforcements arrive," Derek said as he came back out and shook the officer's hand. "You going to pull another miracle here?"

"Sheila Henderson. I'm good to go," the young heroine said.

"How many shells do you have for that archaic thing?" Toni Shepard asked.

"Ever-full clip. I'm not running out anytime soon," the overly tall 11 year old explained.

"No armor. You should stay here. You'll just get someone killed. Likely yourself," the special forces commander said, her green eyes narrowed in frustration.

"Low profile ballistic armor. I'm volunteering and it's my choice," the girl said in frustration. "I've been in my share of firefights."

"I hate to say this, but she killed more of those husks than I did with that pistol of hers. If she's got ammo, we can use her," Ashley said with a shrug, "She can at least warn us and watch our backs."

"It's against my better judgement, but you're right, Gunny. Let's move out," Toni called out.

"Right, Shepard!" Kaidan called out.

The N7 special forces led the way downhill to the maglev light cargo rail area.

There they found a dead Turian, face down.

"Shot in the back of his head," Cpl. Alenko said.

"Really close range. There is no vantage point around here in that direction. The crates would block a sniper," Sheila noted, pointing towards the stacked metal crates.

"Wait, there someone still here," Commander Shepard called out.

"Don't shoot! I'm still human!" a man's voice called out. The human technician Dillon stepped out from behind the crates.

"You nearly got your head shot off. How did you escape detection?" Toni asked, her green eyes hard as she studied the slovenly man.

"I was, uh, napping out when the attack. Are you looking for the other Turian?" Dillon asked.

"Other-?" Toni asked.

"A second Turian. That crazy scientist mentioned that there was Turian here already, a prophet," Alenko noted.

"Yeah, I think the one who was shot called him Saren. Then this Saren just shot your friend in the back," the dock worker said.

"This is bad. Nihlus was a Spectre. We had better get that Prothean Beacon secured for extraction," Toni ordered as she led them onto a train. "Controls must be at the other end."

They had to fight their way to the end of the mag-train and then activate the controls. The four Geth drones weren't very tough though.

"They are setting up four foot long devices that are emitting low level radiation and might be setting timers," Sheila said as she looked down the line towards the spaceport as the open air conveyance started moving.

"What? You got some cybernetic mods?" Ashley asked, clearly startled.

"Better than average Mark I eyeballs," the teen replied glibly.

The train zipped towards the spaceport as the massive ship started to float off.

"It's leaving?" the Normandy's lowest rank soldier asked.

"They left some of those geth standing guard over those devices," the scion called out, pointing at one of the nuclear bombs.

"Demolition nukes. We need to disarm those fast. Go go go!" Toni Shepard shouted as she charged around a corner to the stairs that led up the platform. The geth she gunned down barely had time to make a digital squeal as it died. Toni switched her weapon kit for a sniper rifle. She had taken out one when the second geth to the side and across the platforms started taking gunfire from behind. One more shot finished it off.

"How did she get over there?" the Biotic marine asked in confusion. "This looks like the only bridge across here."

"Worry about it later. These might have been left here to suicide with the nukes," Shepard shouted as she thundered across the catwalk and ducked behind cover. She blinked as the young girl dashed past her faster than the geth could lead with their guns and ducked behind her own cover.

Ashley had her own rifle out and was hosing down several geth that had poor cover from her location, even as Kaidan hit one with a biotic push.

"Woo, neat!" Sheila called out. She wished her powers of healing (and their reversing effect) worked on robots.

In just three minutes, they had cleared out all the geth that were left. Now it was just a race to disable the bombs. Toni Shepard was working on the third one when Sheila finished dragging the fourth over to her.

The colony marine looked over to where she had just come from over a hundred feet away. "These things are twelve hundred pounds, easy." That would require some fairly invasive cybernetics or a set of armor with good strength enhancements installed.

"Less talking, more disarming of nuclear bombs, please," the young teen sniped back in a snide voice.

"Got a point. I've got this," Kaidan called out as his Omnitool glowed while he manipulated the nanites to disable the device. "And that's it. All four bombs are disabled. All that's left is the Prothean Beacon."

All four of them walked back to the strange spire that was on the edge of the platform overlooking the blasted remains of the colony that had been razed to the ground.

"Wow, that thing is giving off very, very strange energies," Sheila said, her blue-green eyes nearly glowing as she studied the pitted and decayed device.

The curious Kaidan nodded as he walked up past them to the device. "Yeah, this is the Prothean artifact all right."

It started to hum louder and louder.

"Kaidan!" Toni Shepard shouted even as she and Sheila dashed up to him. Both of them grabbed a shoulder and then tossed him back to slide across the metal floor with a few sparks of metal on metal.

The young scion had continued to move, her other hand spinning around to push Toni away when the spire erupted with strange energies. Both of them were speared and floated up into the air as alien information was slammed into their nervous system.

Darkness claimed them both just before the beacon self-destructed, shearing the top off the device.

* * *

"Are you all right?" a friendly voice called out as bright white light filled her gummy eyes. "I'm Doctor Chakwas of the Normandy."

"I've been better. What did that giant hit me with?" the young girl asked inanely. "Oh, wait. That spire thingie blew up after dumping a whole bunch of weird stuff into my head. Actually, I think our heads." She sat up slowly, feeling very woozy.

"I'm impressed you woke up much earlier than Commander Shepard did. I figure she should wake up in about eight more hours," the older woman said. "We are a bit worried, you seem to be missing your official records chip."

"My what? You use biometric chipping as the default information and identification procedure?"

"Yes, its an old, reliable technology so that you always have your medical transcripts and such," the gray haired woman said as she frowned. Generally this only happened because of illegal colonies or outright criminal removal to make it harder for the police to track you. But how had she gotten to Eden prime then?

"Oh, I probably pre-date that. I think I got shunted into a future or sidereal time stream-"

"Predate? You don't look that old." Doctor Chakwas looked perturbed at the direction this conversation was taking.

Sheila gave her a short flat stare to let the doctor know she did not like being interrupted. "I'm not even eighteen yet," she lied by omission poorly, "but I was born in the year 2000 AD."

"Some sort of stasis could allow for that, if such a technology existed back then." The doctor did not look convinced.

"Which it didn't. Let's just say the laws of physics got severely bent and appeared in a burning field with this huge, alien spaceship and killer robots." Sheila tried to look her most innocent and earnest.

"Well, Sergeant Williams and Corporeal Alenko both vouched that you were quite helpful and we were the closest facility that could treat you." The gray haired doctor smiled, willing to play along if nothing else, "Let me pull up your records from the year 2000. Where were you born?"

"Saint Mary's in Chicago, Illinois. The United States of America. It's still around, right?" Sheila asked suddenly.

"Yes, actually." That seemed to cause Doctor Chakwas to grin slightly. "Now that is odd. I do have a Sheila Henderson that matches your looks." Her eyes flicked over to Sheila and then back. "This is... impossible. She died over a hundred years ago, an admiral of the US Navy." They height looked accurate, but the face looked almost too perfect. The girl in the ancient picture was almost identical if not quite as symmetrical and the proportions were just subtly more pleasing to her eye. Even the eyes and hair (somehow) had a finer sheen and color.

Sheila was thinking as fast and furiously as possible even as she wished she could see the displayed information. "So either I'm an insane clone or I've been flung through space and time here before I am sent back... or I'm from an alternate reality." Probably an alternate reality. A regular navy career sounded a bit dull and conformist in her mind.

"Well, her genetic records are on file, but I'll have to request that from Earth. Your features are slightly more perfect than your university graduation pictures, so I'm thinking a clone. Even though I can't find any markers of genetic modification for flash growing you." Doctor Chakwas was now very intrigued. The girl looked very close to that picture. Wait a second. That said she graduated in 2011. "I wonder how accurate your memories are." What sort of child can graduate college at that kind young of age?

"I have a perfect, eidetic memory," the blonde-haired girl replied with a shrug.

The genius sort, it appears. Chakwas nodded her graying head.

The door chimed as it opened, admitting an older, craggy-faced male officer. Chakwas stood up quickly and saluted. "Captain Anderson!"

"At ease, doctor. I heard that our guest woke up." His dark brown eyes studied the girl. "You seem to be recovering well. Any aftereffects from the beacon?"

"Weird, surreal visions." Sheila closed her eyes and started to speak, "Beware the destroyers of the Second Great Civilization of the Galaxy. They await outside of the dark of the galaxy to destroy civilizations after they rise around the Citadel, their trap. We have disabled the Citadel, it will not accept the signal and can not summon its true masters to destroy you, the next great civilization to arise. Beware the Reapers." A warning of some sort?

Anderson and Chakwas looked at each other. The captain frowned. "What was that?"

"The message from the beacon, though it appeared to be a bit degraded and lost a lot of information. The people in it were talking about beings that destroyed the Second Great Civilization that are outside the galaxy and that they were going to return. The Citadel is a trap of some sort, which they have disabled so it can't signal them. Well, I'm paraphrasing the mimetic thought process of the beacon makers." It was actually giving her a bit of a headache to think it through as flashes of the vision appeared in her mind's eye.

"You speak Prothean?" Chakwas asked, thinking the girl had made a mistake.

"Prothean? I do? What's a Prothean?"

Captain Anderson felt a headache coming along. A very, very large headache.

* * *

"That's all I remember," Commander Toni Shepard explained to Captain Anderson from where she was sitting on the edge of one of the Normandy's medical beds sixteen hours later.

"Play back the recording," he ordered the doctor. Weird sibilant words came across the computer system. "Did that sound like something from the beacon?"

"Yes, it did, although the voice was very different," Toni said with wide, startled green eyes dominating her face. "I caught a couple of phrases that were the same."

"But you didn't understand it?" the captain asked. At the shake of her head, he continued. "That's Prothean. Supposedly a warning about a race that lives outside the galaxy that came and destroyed them."

"It could be, captain, but it's too confusing for me to be sure," the red-headed special-forces operative admitted. "All I get is a lot of weird, alien flashes and thoughts."

"Corporal Alenko reported that you believe Nihlus was killed by another Turian named Saren?"

"That's right, sir. A civilian had spotted them talking, before the second Turian killed Nihlus. Shot him in the back of the head."

"The Council is very worried about this accusation and has recalled us to speak in front of them."

Toni Shepard stood up. "Well, if you don't mind, I'd like to get cleaned up and moving."

"Shepard, that's no problem whatsoever. I'm just glad you made it back and that we only lost one marine. Jenkins will be sorely missed, though I did reassign Williams from Eden to the Normandy." Captain Anderson returned her salute and then headed out to his own office. "We should be close to docking, so check in with Joker and Pressley."

Toni spotted the Gunnery Sergeant talking to the skinny figure of the civilian as she explained different parts of the ship. "Commander!" Ashley called out, saluting. "Good to see you up and about."

"Good to be up and about. I'm just going to clean up and then get some grub. Meet you both in the mess in fifteen?"

Toni was as good as her word, looking slightly wet from her quick dash through the shower but in new clothing.

"Hard to believe we're racing to an ancient alien artifact to transfer across a fifth of the galaxy," Sheila said in excitement. She had been given a set of clothes from the ship stores, almost fitting in with the crew.

"It's been a pretty amazing time since we discovered the Charon Relay," Ashley said with a wan grin at the younger girl. "So you are from the Metro Chicago area?"

"It was rural Illinois when I was there, but yes. Gunney Williams says you are spacer born, commander?" Sheila asked the older woman.

The redhead nodded. "Born and raised. My mother is the XO of one of the System Alliance's dreadnaughts. So I guess space is in my blood. Did you want to see us dock in the Citadel?"

The young girl nodded her head eagerly.

* * *

A giant, black behemoth slipped through the dark of unknown space, far from any ship or station, like a Kraken of ancient horror that had decided to creep through the dark depths of space. Seated in a throne-like control chair, the Spectre Saren Arterius, brooded while massaging his forehead. Cybernetics could be seen under his mandibles and his eyes had been replaced with sensors; a hint that he was more machine than Turian now.

Saren felt a small pang of guilt momentarily at the thought of killing his old protege, but for the barest moment. It had to be done. The spectre was a threat and needed to be removed.

He was interrupted from his musings when the door behind him opened and a strikingly beautiful blue-skinned Asari walked towards him. He turned towards her, indicating that she could speak to him.

"We've identified the ship that touched down on Eden Prime. The Normandy. A Human System Alliance vessel built as a joint Turian-Human project. It was under the command of Captain Anderson and they managed to save the colony."

Saren frowned momentarily at the failure to destroy the Eden Prime space port; that only made his game harder to play and Anderson had always hated him after he spoiled his chance to become the first human spectre. That was of little concern though. It may have been hard for him, but it was damn near impossible for Anderson to play in galactic politics.

Saren was a spectre, the human was not. It was that simple. Besides, there was really only one thing gnawing in the mind of the increasingly agitated Turian. "…and the beacon?"

"One or more of the humans may have used it." The woman finished quietly, devoid of emotion, sensing danger from the Turian.

It could have been the pain from his cybernetics or the failure to destroy the Prothean Beacon immediately, but for at an instant, Saren lost control and howled in anger. He leapt from his seat, throwing tables and chairs aside in blind anger and frustration. How dare they… How dare the humans resist their betters?

Turning on the source of his anger, he took several steps towards the woman and grabbed her face with one of his claw-like hands. He held her face in a threatening manner for a long moment.

"These humans…" the spectre hissed out, "must be killed at all cost."


	2. Citadel Mentality Politics

The SSV Normandy hove into view in the Citadel, the frigate moving to dock in a smooth fashion to the five 'leaf' O'Neil-type rotating station. Captain Anderson led his XO, Commander Toni Shepard and the strange civilian they had picked up to the airlock.

"You know, for a civilization that spanned the whole galaxy, the Citadel is smaller than I expected," Sheila noted. "I mean, we looked into engineering full-sized O'Neil colonies with a much more crude tech base. The separate arms would not serve a purpose in that set up. And..." The young scion closed her eyes. With a startled snap, she remembered something from the Prothean beacon. "It's a trap somehow. Whatever wiped out the Protheans started here." She started to look along the edges of the Citadel arms.

"But other than the Mass Relays, its the only thing left of the Protheans," the older officer of the Systems Alliance noted.

"I think she's right," Toni noted, her pale features and light freckles under her red hair making her look like some sort of apparition in her N7 armor.

"Let's get processed and then we'll go to the Presidium."

Anderson led them through customs, smiling softly at the gawking teen as she saw many aliens; Turians, Asari, Elcor, and Hanar mostly at this point.

They took one of the flying cars to the Presidium, the headquarters of the Council. They arrived just in time to hear the end of Ambassador Udina's argument with the Council via hologram.

"This is an outrage! The Council would step in if the geth attacked a Turian colony!" Udina was saying stridently.

"The Turians don't found colonies on the borders of the Terminus Systems, Ambassador," the hooded Salarian Councilor was saying.

The blue-skinned and strikingly pretty Asarian continued, "Humanity was well aware of the risks when you went into the Traverse."

"What about Saren? You can't just ignore a rogue Spectre. I demand action!" the human ambassador said loudly and with feeling.

"You don't get to make demands of the Council, Ambassador," the Turian noted coolly, his lightly marked face not showing his anger.

"Citadel Security is investigating your charges against Saren. We will discuss the C-Sec findings at the hearing. Not before," the Asari Councilor declared. With that, the council killed the holocom link.

"Captain Anderson. I see you brought half your crew with you," the balding and gray-haired politician said snidely.

Captain Anderson just narrowed his eyes angrily. "Just the leader of the ground team from Eden Prime and the civilian witness to answer any questions."

"The mission reports are accurate?"

The captain of the Normandy bit back a very impolite reply. "They are. Sounds like you convinced the Council to give us an audience."

Ambassador Udina nodded. "Saren's their top agent. They don't like him being accused of treason, so they are very unhappy."

"Must make them look bad," Sheila muttered to herself.

"I hadn't thought of that. Yes, that makes a lot more sense, especially from the Turian standpoint. It's a stain on the Counselor's own honor. Thanks, that might be useful to remember," Udina replied in surprise at the insight. He was deep in thought for a long moment as he frowned while considering the Turian mindset and honor system.

"We still better hope the C-Sec investigation turns up evidence to support our accusations. Otherwise the Council might use this as an excuse to keep you out of the Spectres, Commander. Come with me, Captain Anderson. I want to go over a few things before the hearing. Shepard, you and the others can meet us at the Citadel Tower. Top level. I'll make sure you have clearance to get in."

Toni led Sheila back outside. "Politics... never an enjoyable affair."

"Could have been a lot worse," the young girl noted.

* * *

Half an hour later, they were in the Citadel Tower, listening to the Council as they deliberated (or rather Ambassador Udina argued) with them. The run in just before the meeting with the C-Sec agent Garrus Vakarian and Executor Pallin, the leader of Citadel Security had been illuminating, if rather random. The fact that Garrus had been shut out within only eighteen hours of the investigation starting... was worrisome.

"Spectre Saren is a valued member and agent of the Council," the Turian declared again as the hologram of Saren looked on. They had been arguing for five minutes to no good and no advancement from any sides.

Sheila suddenly decided that she needed to bring up some points before the argument started to turn recursive. Again. "Excuse me, honored councilors of the Citadel, but may I interject?"

After a moment of surprise at the interruption, the Asari Councilor nodded. "Please, if you have relevant information." The stately female appeared to be in the Matriarch Stage of Asari life.

Udina was so incensed he was willing to allow anyone to talk, so he just nodded his head.

"I would like to bring up several points that paint this scene in a very worrisome light to the human viewpoint. One is that by Saren being given direct access to Nihlus' records, it appears that the Council has already decided, within fifteen hours of a local C-Sec investigation, that your Spectre Saren bears no guilt. C-Sec has not even had time to send someone to Eden Prime. That, to the human viewpoint, indicates that Spectre Saren was actually on Eden in an official capacity. Which insinuates heavily that either the Turians or the Council actually gave the orders to attack Eden and kill thousands of colonists; something that could be construed a direct act of war," she laid out dispassionately. "In fact, the only reason that you would be denying that this is the case is that you are using a disinformation ploy to make it look like a race that has not even been seen for two centuries was responsible in order to continue to prepare for an all out invasion."

The Salarian's large black eyes blinked, showing his shock. The Asari narrowed her eyes at the impertinent girl, while the Turian looked incredibly incensed as his mandibles moved rapidly.

"Furthermore, if it was not sanctioned by the Council, that indicates the possibility that this was sanctioned by the Turians, perhaps in covert retaliation for their losses at Shanxi. The fact that Spectre Saren was not even put on a leave of absence while humanity and the council representatives can investigate, only leads to the most dire of predictions from humanity; that this is an act of war to weaken us in preparation for a full scale invasion," she continued, her voice carrying incredibly deadly intent. "An act of war that has already killed hundreds of helpless civilians and the attempted use of nuclear weapons upon a garden world to hide the guilty."

Commander Shepard, Captain Anderson and Ambassador Udina all stared at her in horror as she essentially accused the galactic government of declaring war on humanity.

"The Council certainly did not sanction any attack upon Eden, though now that this has been explained in such fashion, we can understand humanity's concerns. I would put forward that we vote that Spectre Saren is immediately put on administrative leave until a full investigation is completed to the satisfaction of all," the Asari matriarch on the council declared as her dark blue eyes studied the young girl.

"This is an outrage. Spectre Saren has been an exemplary asset. This is mere hyperbole that this young human is bringing up. I vote against this procedure!" the Turian declared abruptly, clearing bristling with outrage.

The Salarian shook his head under his hood. "I disagree. In the light of explanation and logic of the human, this only makes sense for the sake of galactic peace."

"The motion is carried. Spectre Saren, you are temporarily relieved of your duties pending a full investigation by C-Sec and the humans System Alliance. This concludes our business."

"You, girl... You are playing a very dangerous game," Saren snarled before he disconnected his communication hologram.

The council members faded back into the shadows like ethereal beings of a higher order, lending a mystique to their position.

"Remind me to not let you talk to the council again," Udina said as he dabbed his forehead with his hanky.

"You do realize I didn't lie about a single thing there, right? Or didn't you realize that it is a possibility that the Turians or the Council was moving against humanity?" she responded.

"Sheila is right, ambassador. At least we've pulled a bit of Saren's fangs by getting him put on administrative leave. That means no council immunity and he can't move totally unimpeded. That's far better than I expected," Captain Anderson noted with a grim smile.

"Now we just need to get more proof," Toni said, slamming her armored fist into the palm of her hand. The N7 marine was furious as she thought through the potential implications Sheila had raised.

"I'd start with Harkin. He might have some information about this Garrus and his investigation," the human ambassador said. "Harkin finally got himself suspended from C-Sec, but he knows how things work on the inside there."

"I'll go talk to him immediately," the XO of the Normandy declared. That officer, Garrus, might be quite useful, Toni thought silently

It was only as Toni was entering into one of the transportation vehicles that she realized someone was following her. "What do you think you're doing?"

Sheila raised an eyebrow. "Helping you, of course. Or do you think Udina would have noted the possibility of the Council being behind Saren and used that to get him temporarily relieved of his Spectre status?"

"You're a kid and a civilian," the pale redhead noted.

"So you are just going to leave me to be all alone on the big bad space station?" she asked in faux-shock.

Toni just about growled, then let out a puff of breath in aggravation at the girl as the air-car lifted off.


	3. Squad

"Chora's Den, huh?" Toni said as she spotted the sign down the corridor. "I really hope Harkin knows where this Garrus is. No one else at C-Sec seems to care." She had just stepped into the open air courtyard that led to the bar when she spotted two toughs.

"Commander Shepard?" the lead Turian asked.

"Who's asking?" Toni replied as she slowed as her subconscious started to warn of incoming danger.

So she was not quite surprised when the lead thug started to go for his pistol. The fact that Sheila beat him to his weapon and started to grapple was a bit surprising.

"Wha-!?" the thug managed to get out before his face was abruptly introduced to the floor, bouncing off the metal plate as two strong hands guided him after his feet left the ground courtesy of a foot sweep. With a groan, he was out, so didn't hear Shepard's service pistol fire several times to take out his partner.

The foot planted on his neck quickly reoriented him to his task. Or the failure thereof.

"Talk. Who sent you?" Shepard demanded as she placed her Kessler pistol up against his mandible.

All she got was a groan.

"Guess we should call C-Sec in and let them arrest them," Sheila said as she thought over things.

It was only a distraction of ten minutes for C-Sec to arrive and arrest the thugs. Luckily, they only took a statement as the aliens were already wanted for several different crimes.

"Seems like the more places you go, the more crime you see," Toni mused, thinking back to all the different bases and space ports she had visited as a child. The door opened, revealing the pounding beat of techno music. and the round dance stage behind the bar. Several Asari maidens were dancing away on the stage and poles around the edge. "And great... I'm aiding in the corruption of a minor..."

"You know, this really isn't that amazing," the young scion said as she scanned past the limber, blue-skinned aliens on the platform and took in the rooms other occupants.

They wandered around the edge for a moment before Sheila spotted a human drinking at a table by himself, his C-Sec uniform being quite distinctive. She tapped the armored red-head's shoulder and gestured in the direction.

"Are you Harkin?" Shepard asked as they walked up.

"Yeah, that's me. What do you want?" the older human asked bitterly. The Alliance officer in armor took most of his attention, but he spared the girl standing next to her for a moments consideration.

"Let me buy you a drink for interrupting. I'm looking for Garrus. He was working the Saren case and we want to see if he's pulled up any leads," the commander said, her bright green eyes studying the man. She waved for a waitress to bring another drink.

"Yeah, he was a bit upset at Executor Pallin shutting him down. He even quit over the matter. Damn Turian was sticking up for him. I think Pallin knew Saren from before." Harkin obviously did not like his old boss much either.

"Sounds a bit rough there. But Garrus is still my only lead right now. You worked with him in C-Sec, so I figured you might know where he was," Toni said, making a sideways chopping motion with her armored hand.

"I might be willing to tell you, if you tell me who you are working for," the human asked.

"I'm Commander Shepard with the System Alliance." Toni narrowed her green eyes as she saw his face light up, showing he was scheming.

"One of Anderson's crew? Do you know his big, bad dark secret? Why he hates Saren so much?" Harkin just smirked nastily. "Saren cost him his position as humanity's first spectre. Bet he didn't tell you that, did he?"

"I don't see why it's any of your business. I'm interested in Garrus right now," Toni said in a colder voice.

Harkin just smiled, like she had answered a question of his own. "Bastard is still hunting Saren. Last I heard, he was headed to Dr. Chloe Michel's Medical Clinic in the Wards, following up a lead." Harkin took the drink the Asari waitress brought him.

"Thanks. Hopefully I can catch up to him soon." Toni stood up and walked out of the bar. Outside, she turned to Sheila. "Well, I should get you back to the ship."

"You are just going to talk to this guy, aren't you? Besides, I've been useful so far."

Toni had to admit that was true. Especially how smoothly she inconvenienced Saren. "Fine. But stay out of trouble."

* * *

'Stay out of trouble' seemed to be something impossible for them that day, as Toni and Sheila took a quick look at the human thugs threatening Dr. Michel. Garrus had been sneaking up on their position and was about to turn a corner.

"Who the hell are you guys?" the lead thug shouted out as he grabbed the female doctor and put a pistol to her head as he spotted them at the door.

"This doesn't have to turn ugly," Toni said, her pistol out already. She had very fast reflexes for a human. Her genetic modifications would have made an olympic athlete a century ago incredibly jealous.

The thugs were distracted from the closer Turian for a moment too long, as he brought up his assault rifle up and fired. The next thirty seconds were absolute mayhem as the thugs found themselves in a crossfire between the Turian and the humans. The crack-crack of Toni's kinetic accelerated grains was quiet compared to the heavy sounds of Sheila's 10mm custom pistol.

"This so isn't my fault. We were going to talk to a doctor. That shouldn't require firearms," the young scion stated as she ducked behind cover. She popped out to put several slugs into one, but all she did was deplete his kinetic barrier.

Garrus's assault rifle, on the other hand, finished him off. "I think that's it," He said, His rifle slowly cooling down after the furious assault.

"So who sent these guys to knock your block off?" the human commander asked pointedly.

"From what I gathered, Fist. I think I need to ask him some pointed questions about this Quarian he is supposed to be helping. She's been my first solid lead and I think Fist is playing her," the visibly angry Turian ground out.

Dr. Chloe Michel frowned as she stood back up from where she had ducked when the fight had started. "That poor girl, she said she was trying to sell her information to the Shadow Broker. She hoped it was enough that she would be able to buy a ship for her pilgrimage."

"Sounds like we need to talk to this Fist and see what's going on. And that means you are staying outside this time. I'm almost positive he's going to not want to talk. And he's probably got the toughs to back him up," Toni Shepard warned the young girl with him.

"If you insist." Sheila hated this part. She was nearly as capable as anyone, and smarter than almost everyone she knew.

* * *

Sheila winced twenty minutes later as she heard Shepard and Garrus work their way through the armed human thugs guarding Fist. She had offered to keep a listening post by the air-car port and bridge. The Human and Turian were doing a very good job of breaking through all the security, she had to admit. They were currently talking to Fist after destroying his robotic gun turrets and discussing how he had broken with the Shadow Broker.

And was sending the Quarian into a trap! And now some Krogan had arrived?

"Shit! That meeting is supposed to be right now," Toni Shepard called out. "And we're pinned down fighting our way out." At least the Krogan seemed to be here to kill Fist's men.

"Commander, I'm outside and can reach that location fast. Give me the location and I'll warn the Quarian," Sheila said as she stood up out of the less lit area near the air-cars.

"It's the back alley area behind the lower markets below Escarron's Emporium," Toni called out even as she snapped off several shots with her pistol, then launched a biotic wave to knock down another alien thug through several chairs in Chora's Den.

The many and varied aliens in the lower ward barely saw the pink and blue blur passing through the market stalls. Then she was dashing across the market's back alleys to an armored door that led to an alternate path to other areas of the Citadel.

It had only taken her twenty seconds to pass the thousand feet distance; up ahead, she spotted a figure skulking around in the shadows waiting for someone.

"Are you the Quarian?" she asked as she slowed down when approaching the helmeted figure.

"Bosh'tet! Don't do that! Yes, but I thought my contact was a Turian-" the pressure-suited Quarian said.

"Fist betrayed you and the Shadow Broker. He's sent some thugs to kill you. So unless you want to die, you need to come with me," the young human said earnestly.

Tali'Zorah nar Rayya narrowed her pale eyes. "You aren't kidding me. Bosh'tet! I need that money-"

"Well, you just found a new buyer, but we can only buy it from you if you come with us. Duck!" Sheila called out, pulling her behind a crate.

Fist's Turian contact and two Salarian commandos were moving down the corridor towards them, pistols sparking small holes in the armored walls.

"Don't you have any shields?" Tali asked the strange human with blonde hair on top.

"No!" Sheila popped around the corner of a crate and fired several times at a Salarian thug, causing his shield to fade out. The gunshots of her silver pistol were deafening.

The Quarian popped up and fired her own pistol, taking out the amphibian, but took a shot from the Turian that caused her shields to flicker. "Gah! That was too close."

The last Salarian had moved closer and was on the other side of a large crate from Sheila. His very alien face was covered by the full helmet and hid his grin. So his surprise when the nine hundred pound crate suddenly slammed into him and set him sprawling was quite complete. Sheila settled the crate on top of him, pinning him against the Citadel's metal deck-plate.

The Turian was suddenly retreating, only to stagger as Tali popped out around the corner and fired her shotgun at short range. His shields were torn away by the blast, and he started to jerk and twitch as 10mm bullets hammered home with supernatural force. With a cry, he staggered and fell to the deck, rapidly bleeding out.

"For a primitive pistol, that thing has some serious punch," Tali noted as her shotgun collapsed mechanically for carrying, and then was slipped on her back 'fanny-pack' magnetic latch.

"It isn't exactly standard," the young girl admitted. She tapped the little radio unit in her ear that had been created for her from an Omnitool. "Shepard, I managed to rescue your source before Fist's men got to her."

The young Quarian looked around even as they walked. "I need to turn this information into something big. But I owe you guys a lot. So you have my assistance in whatever you need."

"We'll have to talk to Shepard, but I'm sure she can come up with something," Sheila promised. "Heck, just being the only Geth specialist around is probably worth a lot."

"But let's move somewhere else a lot safer first," Tali said.

"The ambassador's suite in the Presidium should be good enough. You took out Fist's men?" Toni asked as she and Garrus arrived at a trot. "Good. Let's get out of here."

A lumbering Krogan in scarlet armor had followed them, eyes keen as he watched with his new companions.

* * *

The recorded conversation between Saren and the Asari Matriarch Benezia had been quite damning, and was the final nail in Saren's position as a Spectre. The Citadel Council finally started moving, assigning Shepard as a new Spectre to hunt down Saren for his crimes in a special session that was transmitted live to those in the know on the station. Applause had broken out as she was awarded the very coveted position. Soon it would be burning through the FTL transmitters across the galaxy, though the reason for her promotion would not be mentioned directly.

Commander Toni Shepard strode through the halls of her ship, the Normandy, after Captain Anderson stepped down to give her the means necessary to hunt down the rogue Spectre. "Joker, get us out of here and plot us a course to the Artemis Tau Cluster. Our best lead is probably Matriarch Benezia's daughter."

"Sounds like a wild goose chase. I'm not sure how well Presley is going to adapt to having a civilian and a couple of aliens under foot," the scruffy pilot said.

"That civilian has some of the same information from the Prothean Beacon bouncing around in her head as I do, so she's an intelligence asset if nothing else. And Tali'Zorah believes her pilgrimage is tied into our mission and feels she owes us her life. Besides, she's supposed to know a lot about the Geth. We might need her help in hacking any computers or damaged units. Wrex and Garrus both wanted in to hunt down Saren." Toni frowned in thought. This was definitely turning into a strange mission so far, especially with the Krogan that nearly demanded to be brought aboard after they had helped each other at Chora's Den. "I need to go speak to Dr. Chakwas now though."

"Later, commander," Joker said casually, but still didn't manage to ruffle his new commanding officer's feathers.

Toni just nodded to her pilot and then headed down one deck to the infirmary. As the door swished out of the way, she saw the doctor sitting at her console. "Doctor? You have something for me?"

"Yes, commander, I do. I got the records back from Earth. A full genetic assay from Admiral Sheila Henderson, US Navy. I did a full match test and discovered something rather startling. There are no markers for genetic modifications, yet there are subtle difference;. it's like whoever modified her genome broke every rule. Everything expresses itself much more cleanly, yet they are genetically identical." The gray-haired doctor looked a bit confused at this as she showed two streams of data on the glowing hologram screen in front of her. "I've had the Virtual Intelligence of the Normandy keeping an eye on her data access. No attempts at communicating with anyone, but her advancement through the tutorial system has been rather remarkable. I don't think some of your bridge officers could manipulate data as quickly as she can after just a single day."

"What about implants?" Toni had noted that the girl had responded with faster than normal reaction times.

"None. Not even the basic ID implants to use an Omnitool. In fact, I'd like to do that so she is fully in the system."

Toni frowned. "So she's a ghost in the system? That shouldn't be possible. Even the colonies out in the Terminus Systems dump birth records to the System Alliance for statistical purposes."

"If she's as prone to falling into combat as you are, commander, you might want to see her fitted with at least a basic set of armor."

"She has some of that Prothean Beacon in her head, so I can't just send her back to Earth. I get the feeling that information might be pivotal. Thank you, Dr. Chakwas. If you come up with anything else, let me or Pressley know immediately." Toni stood up and went hunting for her new crew.

It took about ten minutes, but she found them in the engine room, chattering along quickly in Quarian. The chief engineer seemed a bit amused as he listened to them natter on about how to squeeze every last bit of power out of the Tantalus Core through the translation systems in her implants. That was when she frowned. Sheila didn't have implants, so how was she talking in Quarian?

"Commander Shepard! Thank you for allowing me to join your crew. This ship is absolutely amazing," the young alien engineer said, veritably brimming with excitement.

"That sounded like some high level Mass Effect equations that you were going over there," the red-headed officer said with a soft smile.

"Yes, I've been learning about Element Zero and how it can make Dark Energy. The math is pretty intense, but very engaging," the young blonde scion said happily. "It answers so many questions in the Unified Field Theory."

That got a raised eyebrow from the captain.

"So what are we doing now?" Tali asked her new captain.

"We're tracking down a matriarch to find Saren. Which first means tracking down her daughter." Toni's countenance was grave at that pronouncement.

She just hoped that the System Alliance wouldn't throw a fit at her bringing a Turian, a Quarian, a Krogan and a human civilian into this mess.


	4. Archeology

Therum was an inhospitable, rocky world. The Normandy flew overhead, releasing the Mako heavy survey vehicle. The six-wheeled assault vehicle was thoroughly shielded and heavily armed. With a Mass Effect Core, it could even bounce around in a manner quite unlike heavy vehicles would be expected to handle, almost as though it were made of rubber, caroming off and over barriers.

It was a safe, fun and exciting way to head to Dr. Liara T'Soni's base where she was doing xeno-archeology. So Sheila was along to explain what she could to the Prothean expert while Toni pumped her for information on her mother, a classic distraction technique. And the N7 officer only felt a small twinge at using the kid to get the information.

After all, who brings a teen with them to an interrogation?

Toni had Sgt. Ashley Williams piloting the finicky vehicle. Everything was fine until they received a warning that there was a Geth gunship dropping hostiles ahead. The heavy vehicle's cannon fire quickly destroyed the Geth war machines before they could do more than ping their shields.

"Geth here!?" Ashley called out. "I thought this was supposed to be a milk run?"

"So did I," Toni called back as she tracked the cannon around.

"Looks like we're on the right track," Sheila noted from the observer's chair, addressing Shepard who was riding as the turret's gunnery officer.

"Yeah, and it looks like they've taken over the survey site. We'll need to clear them out," Toni said. There weren't supposed to be any hostiles here, though she had fallen into combat operations easily enough.

The path between lava fields was a bit hectic, even if the Mako seemed quite superior to the Geth anti-vehicle robots. They had to traverse an alternate path to avoid some turrets, but all in all made it through the path to the excavation site fairly quickly.

They exited the Mako at the base of a narrow trail that led up to the excavation as Geth skittered in preparation for an ambush.

"Shepard, there is a Geth presence up ahead," Sheila warned as she spotted one climbing upside down along a gantry.

"I thought it was too quiet after all that resistance to get here," Ashley complained as they all dashed to cover to start shooting at the scampering Geth Hopper above them.

Sheila's pistol was barking rapid fire, striking at scampering Geth that were skittering up on a wall of girders. "They're trying to get us pinned in a crossfire here," she shouted; she was severely limited in where she could dodge with fire coming from all directions.

A Geth gunship flew over head, dropping more troops. Rocket armed heavies and an Armature.

"They threw a freaking tank at us? We must have impressed them somewhere," Ashley shouted out. "Heavy weapon needed here!"

Sheila was too busy shooting at hoppers that were trying to snipe at them from the walls around them. Luckily she was too accurate of a shot to let them force the humans to move from behind the armored crate they had taken cover behind.

"Fire in the hole," Toni shouted as she fired a grenade at the Armature.

The colossal Geth barely had a chance for its mono-eye to flash before it exploded.

"Area clear!" Ashley called out, wishing she had a moment to tuck a loose strand of her dark hair back into her ponytail. Maybe she should wear her hair shorter like the commander?

Toni mentally juggled the pros and cons having the Normandy drop down so she could send Sheila back up, and get Garrus or Wrex down here. The problem was that it would just take too long. "Normandy, recover the Mako while we proceed. This is the entrance to doctor T'soni's site," Toni said, pointing at the ramp that led up to the tubular opening of the dig. "There's probably going to be more resistance inside, so we are going in as swiftly and cautiously as possible."

Sheila made a show of bringing up her Omnitool, but she could already hear the Geth transmission from down below. "I think there are some of those strange transmissions that the Geth use down there." She grabbed the Jackal sniper rifle from her back and sighted down the tube. "I see a couple already."

"Can you take the shot?" the commander asked.

"Too far for me," Ashley said as she sighted down the tube with her own sniper rifle.

"I can try." Sheila knelt down and braced herself. She held her breath and then squeezed the trigger carefully. Over a thousand yards down the angled tube, a Geth suddenly had a functional failure as its robotic head exploded. She let the rifle cycle its firing mechanism and then fired again, slamming into the heavier armor and shields of a red 'Destroyer' Geth but not destroying it. A third shot finished it off. "Got them."

"Move out." Toni led them down into the site at a trot. The tube exited to a pair of elevators that led deeper into the excavation past openings in the wall that had barriers covering them.

The second elevator suddenly jerked and started to make a screeching noise, sparks flying off of it as it came to a halt five feet above the end of the shaft. Luckily they could exit, but the elevator looked quite stuck.

"I don't think we're going back that way-" Ashley started to note.

"Hello? Is anyone there?" a female voice called out in the Asari language.

After scrambling down some debris to the nearest barrier opening, then came across the sight of a young Asari floating in the middle of some sort of Mass Effect field.

"Are you all right?" Toni called out, scanning the area. It appeared there were some consoles behind the Asari.

"So far, yes. I activated this barrier to stop the Geth, but I must have missed a step in the actuation, and ended up trapped like a Ytha in amber," the blue-skinned alien said. "But that was the only option I could see to stop the Geth and their pet Krogan."

"Prothean technology, right?" Sheila asked carefully.

"Yes, from the ruins. This is supposed to be some sort of security feature," the floating alien said.

"Any voice controls or only the holographic interface?" the scion asked.

"Just the touch interface."

That killed the idea to just tell the field to deactivate, Sheila groused mentally.

The sergeant called out suddenly, "Incoming!"

The three humans from the Normandy were suddenly quite busy fending off a Geth assault in the large cavern. Toni fired a shot with her shotgun to hit a volatile fuel cell, taking out three Geth troopers and rocking the area, while Ashley managed to gun down another red Geth Destroyer with her assault rifle, showing why she was a top non-com in the System Alliance Marines. Sheila almost felt superfluous, even as she used an assault rifle to take out the stragglers with extreme accuracy.

"Clear," Ashley called out.

"We need to get her out of that field," Toni said as she studied the stuck Asari. Her assault rifle didn't even make the field flicker.

Sheila put her hand up against it, pushing hard but did not get a better response. "We'll have to think outside the box. It would probably take a heavy cannon from the Mako to affect the shields noticeably."

"Which isn't happening here," Toni pointed at the partially uncovered lowest level. Notably, there was not a field. "Can we dig through that?"

"I saw a heavy excavation laser," Ashley pointed. "It looked fully charged."

"I'd suggest only partially drilling through to that lower level. We should be able to wiggle through and it will make a more effective choke point for Geth following us," Sheila noted casually.

It took ten minutes to calibrate the heavy laser drill while Sheila and Ashley fought off another wave of Geth. The laser whined after powering off. Toni then used a fire suppressant foam to cool the red-hot stone enough that they could slip through in their light armor.

Sheila went through last, dragging a small boulder to nearly cover the hole. She then followed the other two into a large vertical shaft with fans and vents all the way up a thousand feet, disappearing up into the dark.

"I guess we can use this lift to go back up a level," Ashley said, playing with a little holographic control panel.

Liara T'Soni could hear them walking up, but could not quite crane her neck. "You made it past the barrier? The Geth have been trying for hours with no success."

"Applied engineering. I did manage to convince Commander Shepard that we didn't need to set it to full power to melt a small hole," Sheila said, giving the special forces officer a small glare at that.

"You're just lucky I didn't have any C23 explosives," the redhead said. "They're still threatening to revoke my explosives handling permit over my last demolition use."

The marine in the white clamshell armor just shook her dark-haired head. "My boss is a pyromaniac." She started to fiddle with the security console, finally deactivating the force field.

"No, that was the guy I trained under. His nickname was Lt. Nitro." Toni caught the Asari as she dropped to the ground. "Better now?"

"Yes, thanks." The young (for her race, anyways) Asari was quite happy to be out of her accidental trap. "But what about the Krogan and the Geth?"

Sheila was busy typing away on the other holo-console there. "Looks like they were trying to figure a way into the top of that air shaft that we just used to come up. It probably won't take them too long to decipher it, either. If we could distract them with an attack behind and hit them in a pincer, we could wipe them out in minutes. Alenko could bring Garrus, Wrex and Tali down here as a big, loud show."

"They're probably monitoring our communications, but I have an idea," Toni said with a hard smile on her pale features. She keyed her omnitool. "Shepard to Joker. Do you read me? I need you to make sure Alenko and our new friends stay put, just like I did during the Skylian Blitz. That's a direct order from the top."

Joker sat at the center control console of the Normandy. After a moment, he nodded as he realized what the real message was. "I'll pass that along, commander. Over and out."

* * *

The Krogan battlemaster paced impatiently. "How much longer?" he demanded of the synthetics he was working for; they had finally figured out a way past the never sufficiently damned Prothean barrier that was keeping them away from the Asari they had been sent to deal with. His broad face was curled in a permanent scowl.

"Not long, Battlemaster-Krogan," the Geth Destroyer announced as a standard Geth trooper kept working at a panel.

A Geth down the tunnel crackled with discharge as a disruptor round smashed its head, collapsing instantly.

"Glad to see my skills aren't slipping," the white-marked Turian said from up the cavern as his sniper rifle cycled the cooling chamber.

"Mrok! You pissy excuse for a shell! Come die at the hands of a real warrior!" Wrex bellowed out down the cavern even as he moved from cover to cover on his way towards his chosen enemy.

"Move up!" Lt. Alenko ordered even as he sent a wave of biotic energy to knock over one of the closest Geth troopers.

Mrok snarled with his unscarred muzzle. "Wrex? Fighting with humans? I didn't think you could fall any lower," he bellowed right back to the other Krogan. He started to tromp off, missing the sound of the large lift coming up from below.

"They're giving me the chance to fight. I guess the legion of Geth will have to do as a challenge," Wrex growled back. "You sure won't be!"

Mrok opened fire on Wrex in reply to the jab, roaring in anger. So it was quite a surprise when he took a shotgun blast to his back.

"Hit em hard with the crossfire," Toni Shepard shouted, her biotics flaring as she flung a Geth platform into some of the lift machinery.

Ashley was already firing her assault rifle into another Geth's back.

"Damn you Wrex!" Mrok shouted, turning back to the battlemaster from the distraction just in time to take the Krogan's charge on his jaw and not his armored forehead.

Kaidan just shook his head as his charge of biotic energies lifted another Geth into the air for Garrus to take out with pinpoint shots as a one-two tactic. Across the way, Sheila had her assault rifle up and was shredding two more Geth with withering fire.

In moments, the battle was over.

"Guess I was wrong. Neither the Geth nor you, Mrok, were a real challenge," the surviving Krogan said as he finished off the younger and less experienced member of his race with a shotgun blast to his face. "I'm ready to leave this place. You promised me a good fight, Shepard."

"They can't all be super desperate battles that you win by the skin of your teeth, Wrex," Sheila noted dryly. "We won, they're dead and we might be getting closer to Saren."

They all nodded and headed up the tunnel, only stopping long enough for Liara to collect her compiled data.

* * *

The conference room of the Normandy could barely fit all of the Shepard's motley band. In fact, Sheila was leaning up against a bare spot on the curving wall.

"Once again, let me express my thanks for saving me," the Asari archaeologist, nodded her head to Toni. The tendrils on the back of her head flexed slightly, showing her agitation.

"I wish I could say it was just another act of charity, but we're trying to track down your mother. She's fallen in with Saren and his Geth." Commander Shepard noted her surprise.

"Saren? I don't understand how this is supposed to relate to me," the flustered Asari asked nervously.

Toni Shepard started to go through the attack on Eden Prime by Saren and his Geth, the Prothean Beacon, then Saren's expulsion from the Citadel and the stripping of his Spectre status. Sheila listened intently, but didn't really add anything.

"And other than some random leads, it appears we don't have a lot to go with," Toni said, almost complaining, "What is the Conduit and why does Saren care so much about it?'

"So you actually have Prothean information within your mind from the Beacon?" Liara asked in stark amazement.

"Yes, but Sheila was able to actually decipher more than myself. I guess she understood enough to actually speak Prothean," Toni said.

Garrus, Wrex and Tali all turned to look at the girl in question.

The Turian narrowed his eyes as his cheek mandibles flexed. "That's rather impressive."

"My mind is my strongest super-power," the young scion replied glibly, a small smirk curving her lips.

"But we still don't know what Saren wanted with the beacon and why he worked so hard to keep it out of our hands," Toni noted. "And without that, we are just taking stabs in the dark."

"I could attempt to delve those memories with an Asari meld. I'm rated quite high in that regard," Liara offered with an open, considering expression.

"What? Let her muck around in your mind? Are you head-butting nuts?" Wrex demanded of them all.

That caused Toni to frown as she considered the manner.

Sheila walked over to the Asari, studying the blue alien carefully.

"I trust you," She said simply

Liara's eyes went pitch black as a biotic field built up around her. "Embrace Eternity!" With that she dove into the immature human's mind, only to be struck by the breadth and depth of Sheila's mentality. For just a moment she felt a stab of fear that she had done something wrong. It was when multiple tendrils of pure thought guided her to the chaotic images of the Prothean Beacon that she relaxed slightly. The desperate, anguished images that explained the death of the 'second great civilization' at the hand of the Reapers were traumatizing on their own.

A second later, Liara sagged and then collapsed.

"She's just exhausted," Sheila said as she easily caught the larger alien. "She probably should have rested before attempting this."

Ashley and Alenko both moved up to take Liara under her arms. "We better get her to Dr. Chakwas immediately," the male biotic said. "If it were me, I'd probably be puking from the migraine."


	5. The Tree of Domination

The Normandy continued to the next suggested hot spot out on the Traverse, in the Theseus system a few days, and a few random adventures, later. The two moons were lonely companions to the dust choked planet covered in Prothean ruins. They followed the automatic beacon and landed in one of the six large docks. Everything looked like it had been brought in pre-fab, so was very standardized System Alliance or ExoGeni hardware, the company that was footing the bill on this colony.

Toni frowned as she tried to figure out who to bring along. Garrus had been complaining about being stuck aboard, so she tapped him and Wrex (because no one wanted a bored Krogan itching for a fight if he were left aboard.)

"So you're going to lead a second group to talk to the colonists, Lt. Alenko?" Sheila asked curiously.

Toni tilted her head as she considered it. "That's not a bad idea. I'd suggest Williams, Tali and Sheila to mingle with them and get a bead on what's going on. It should be safe enough in the spaceport itself."

"Yes sir," the young lieutenant called out. It was finally time to show his own leadership ability!

"May I come too? I'm quite adept at defending myself with my biotics," Liara asked carefully.

"Don't see why not," Kaiden replied as he checked them all out. Everyone was in armor or their environmental suits.

Toni led them out of the frigate and down to their welcoming committee.

"Uh, hi," the nervous colonist said. "You guys should go see Fai Dan-"

The world seemed to slow down as Sheila picked up the sound of a Geth servos moving closer. "Take cover!" she shouted out, startling everyone. She had her issued assault rifle in her hands as she twisted into position around a corner, her movement a blur to normal human eyes, and opened fire on the Geth.

"Whoa," Kaiden said even as he ducked behind a convenient crate. "What do we have, Sheila?"

"Geth!" Toni and Sheila both shouted.

The Geth troopers were unprepared for heavily armed resistance at the dock, as they had been expecting nothing more than light resistance from the colonists, not to have their ambush turned back on them. It was only a matter of minutes before the robots were wiped out.

"You saved my life. They came out of nowhere just a few hours ago and took over the research station," the colonist explained. "I'm David Al Talaqani."

"Are you hurt?" Sheila asked rhetorically as she consciously checked him over with her health insight. "Commander, we might have a problem."

Toni looked over from where she was canvassing the area. "What sort?"

"Some type of biological infection, coming from a spore in the air." Her eyes actually focused on the spores in the air. "I suggest sealing up our suits."

"What? No, you have to be mistaken," David said in shock even as everyone started to seal their armor up.

"Don't worry, we're here to help," Sheila said with a soft smile. A simple application of her powers over healing and the infection was instantly negated.

The colonist just staggered. "My god, what have I been doing? The alien, it took over our minds!"

Now everyone was looking at them in shock. "What alien?" Shepard demanded.

"The Thorian. It's some sort of tree-like alien that's lived here since the time of the Protheans," the colonist said.

"Mind control spores? That could be bad," the young scion said while concentrating on him hard. "We need to keep him away from the source of the infection."

"Head to the ship and ask for Dr. Chakwas to examine you and put you in isolation. Everyone else, move out. We're going to deal with the Geth and this alien," Toni snapped out. Her pale face looked like frozen ivory under her vividly bright red hair as she snapped her helmet closed.

"Ah, right." David looked totally shocked at what was going on.

"Finally! A fight!" Wrex boomed out.

The eight of them quickly cleared out the remaining Geth in the spaceport, then made their way to the main part of Zhu's Hope.

Up ahead and around the corner of the stairs, they could hear some humans arguing. "We should send someone after David to let him know about the Geth. Hell, we should send out some people to clean them out."

"We aren't moving until the reinforcements from that ship get here. It's too important to defend the Borealis," a human female said.

"Sentries, this is Commander Shepard of the Normandy! Do not fire!" Toni called out, letting her helmet amplify her voice.

"From the Systems Alliance? You got our message?" a colony soldier called out.

Toni stepped out, her N7 insignia easily visible on her special forces armor. "We didn't, actually. We were already on our way. What's the situation?"

"The Geths hit the main hub of the colony and have taken control. We're not aware of any other survivors," one of the colonist militia explained. "You should really see Fai Dan so you can get the lowdown here."

"We'll do that." Toni tripped her external speakers off while talking to Kaiden. "Kaiden, I want you to wander around with Sheila. She seems to be able to tell if someone is infected or not. Try to find out how."

Kaiden just gave her a thumb's up and they all moved in. He tapped Sheila on her shoulder. "A moment, please."

"Yes?" the younger human asked.

"So you can tell who's infected?" the lieutenant asked in a low voice.

"They all are. I need to know how many people there are here before we try to cure them," the young scion explained.

They moved through the colony of Zhu's Hope, Sheila's keen eyes spotting about a dozen and a half people that were all infected to one degree or another while Shepard talked to the leader of the colony, Fal Dai.

"We've got Geth troopers trying to break into the secure area here from that tower, we'll need to clear them out before we can look at pursuing our original objectives," Shepard called out.

* * *

The ancient Prothean tower did not take too long for the double squad to advance through and clear out. Once they were done, Toni talked to Fali Dai again so they could formulate a plan together. Afterwards, the menagerie of races from the Normandy all grouped up as Shepard explained things.

"The Geth have taken over the main ExoGeni research base, so they must be looking for something there. I'm going to lead Garrus and Wrex to recon the situation. After that, we might do a full assault with the Normandy and then clear out any holdouts." Toni looked at all of them through the visor of her mask. "Lt. Alenko is going to lead the group here in 'defense' of the colonists. I want this alien contained or destroyed, is that understood?"

"Understood, commander," Kaiden replied with a quick salute.

The next half an hour was spent unloading the Mako, with Shepard driving and Garrus and Wrex jockeying for the gunnery position as they left.

While Liara, Ashley and Tali mingled with the human colonists a bit to learn of their pressing needs Alenko, the System Alliance Sentinel, pulled Sheila to the side. "So how many of them are infected?"

"All of them. Only sixteen that I've seen, but the Thorian will probably try to defend itself when I start to cure them of the infection," Sheila said seriously.

"Okay then. We'll have to put them slightly at ease. We'll do the disaster relief work; try to fix their water, power and food problems," the officer said he thought intensely.

Power was relatively easy. A crashed Kodiak transport in the lower levels had a full energy pack, which would last the sixteen survivors for weeks. Sheila and Tali were able to fix some pumps down in the lower area, accessing the ancient Prothean aquifers. The rest of the team then found a solution to the problem of food when they were attacked by a group of savage Varren. While the alien hounds were dangerous, they were also quite edible as Ashley recounted.

"If they can eat us, we can eat them," the gunnery Sargent noted with a grin under her helmet.

"Simple and direct. And true for most races, but not the Quarian. I think these things would still try to eat me, even if I was poisonous," the alien complained. "At least they didn't get close enough to rip my containment suit."

"Okay, I'm going to start curing them of the spore infection," Sheila said as they started to wander the compound to inform the different colonists of their successes.

She was about halfway done when they seemed to realize something was wrong.

"Defend the Thorian! They've figured it out somehow," Fali Dai called out even as he struggled against the compulsion. He kept putting back his pistol in its holster.

"This could be bad," Liara said even as she floated one of the infected colonists up into the air.

Sheila made a gesture with her amulet in her hand at the floating colonist and then Fali, causing him to collapse. The female colonist that had been working the crane system earlier and keeping them away was now lifting up part of the Borealis to show a hidden passageway that had stooped over green creatures boiled out of it. Even though they looked similar to the Husks that had been used on Eden Prime, they were actually bud of a plant or strange creatures spawned from the Thorian.

"Just wipe them out," Alenko shouted out, even as his shotgun took out two of the creepers that had rushed up to him.

One of them tried to swipe at Sheila, but she simply bent to the side then lashed out with a punishing kick that sent it bouncing off of the pre-fab modules of the space freighter Borealis that the colonists were using as the basis of their colony.

Liara fired her pistol with an efficiency born of long use to defend herself on remote digs at sites filled with potentially valuable Prothean artifacts, while Ashley Williams dealt with Thorian creepers at long, medium or even short range, smashing them with the butt of her rifle.

"Keep back!" Tali screamed out even as her shields collapsed from the shredding claws of a creeper.

One second Sheila was thirty feet away, then next she had knocked the creeper away with a strength that was beyond natural. She finished it off as it skidded across the ground with her assault rifle. A quick glance at the Quarian told her she was only slightly cut. "We've gotten all the colonists."

Fal Dai and his second in command were shocked at the sudden carnage and the release from the Thorian mind control. "That thing... so insidious."

"You need to get over to the Normandy and get checked out by Dr. Chakwas. Come on, move man, move!" Alenko shouted out.

The colonists started to stagger off to the other landing bay as Ashley radioed ahead to let them know they were coming.

"Down into the rabbit hole, I suppose," the scion noted. The alien was probably very upset about the release of its mind thralls.

"Medigel has stitched the wound and I've patched up the rip, but I am probably infected," Tali groused aloud. She was holding one of her three fingered hands over the new patch on her environment suit.

Sheila looked over to meet her eyes, studying her intently. "That's strange." She drew on a power she did not use often, amplifying her intelligence with the wisdom of the owls, so beloved by her mother Athena. Then she studied the Quarian closer. "You did pick up a viral infection, but there is something else there. An infected and transmissible disease that makes you more susceptible to a whole series of diseases and hyper-sensitive to allergens." Sheila raised her hand again and with a great deal more effort, cured her of both maladies. "All better now."

"What the hell is that?" Kaiden demanded. "That was no biotic power."

Liara T'Soni nodded in agreement, even though you could not see her face for her helmet. "Yes, that was no biotic power."

"It's a power I inherited from my mother. Closer to a faith healing thing than psionics," Sheila admitted carefully.

"Whatever it is, it was sure helpful. Hey, lieutenant, I think we can save the third degree until we are back on the Normandy. I think we still have the small issue of a mind controlling alien to deal with," Ashley called out.

"Right. Ashley, you and Sheila are point. Down into the rabbit hole indeed," the Sentinel ordered.

* * *

The Prothean ruins were choked by roots as they kept going down the incline. At the very bottom, they passed some stairs that led up to the blocked off section of the towers and into a great open shaft which was filled with the Thorian. It was gigantic, easily fifty to sixty foot tall and the tendril 'roots' were actually part of it. Its face was a terror or mockery of most sentient species, something straight out of a Lovecratian horror novel.

"Humans, an Asari and a Quarian," the Thorian rumbled. "I thought your species suitable for control, to protect me from Saren and his Reaper master."

"I guess from your side, there's no moral quandaries in using your abilities to dominate lesser species, is there?" Sheila noted aloud.

"What? You understand that rumbling?" Ashley asked the girl.

"Yes, the ability to decipher spoken languages nearly instantly is very useful," the scion admitted.

"That is-" Liara stuttered out, suddenly realizing that the few times she had spoken to Sheila on board the Normady, that the girl had spoken to her in her native Asari tongue. "You aren't using your implants to translate this, are you?"

Sheila just shook her head, even as parts of her mind programmed the language into her implants and then transmitted it to everyone.

"That is good, for that means you will submit to my will and protect me against the Reapers and their puppet Saren Arterius," the Thorian rumbled out and everyone understood as the picked up its uncaring tone directly.

"Actually, no. You see, it's quite within our morals to kill a mind-raping abomination like you in defense of ourselves. Though we will give you a chance to surrender for incarceration in such a manner so that you can not dominate anyone ever again," the scion of Athena declared hotly.

"I think you are over-stating yourselves." The Thorian opened its mouth and regurgitated out a slimy pod that splatted on the ground, revealing a fully formed Asari with green skin that stood up from the slime puddle.

The Asari opened its eyes. "You are within my clutches and have no hope of escape." Her eyes turned black as a biotic field appeared around her, flashing white and blue as she attempted to crush the annoying girl in front of her. So when the girl leaped over thirty feet straight up to avoid her attack, she was quite surprised. "Humans aren't capable of such feats."

"Guess I'm lucky that I'm only half-human," the girl noted as she held on to a root with one hand and fired a pistol at the podling with the other. Crack-crack-crack went the rounds off of her biotic mass effect shield.

Kaiden and Liara both smashed the green Asari with massive biotic force, flinging her into the elevator shaft to fall to her doom.

"Thanks for not surrendering, abomination!" Sheila sing-songed out as she landed back on the small platform. "I think we can break it loose so it falls to its death like that podling thing did."

"Yes, this thing must be destroyed." Liara seemed quite incensed at the use of an Asari by the Thorian.

Everyone charged up the stairs that surrounded the open pit, destroying green creepers as they went.

"This seems to be, well, a support structure for the Thorian, holding it over that large pit. Why, I have no idea," the Quarian complained. Biologicals did not make nearly as much sense as devices that she could tinker with or repair.

"This is just its main node. It actually stretches all the way down the shaft," Sheila noted. "It could be quite a bit larger down there."

"Lieutenant, I would suggest that we set grenades as demolition devices and move to the next node," the gunnery sergeant called out.

"Do it!" the biotic human shouted back.

Then it was just the chaotic sound of shotguns, pistols, rifles and the occasional grenade as they wiped out the creepers and the occasional green Asari clone that attacked with her biotic powers.

Half an hour of fighting later, the area was cleared out. Sheila tilted her head as the Thorian rumbling in its nearly subsonic voice about how it was Feron and that it had survived the Reapers, the Protheans and Saren so it would survive them also.

"That is a very unhappy mind-controlling organism," she remarked sagely.

"Well, let's send it to hell," the biotic leader of their group called out.

"You've got the trigger code, lieutenant," Ashley called out.

After the group of them pulled back, Kaiden used his Omni-tool implants to trigger the implanted grenades. The five major branches that were holding up the Thorian. With a massive thundering roar, the strange alien fell into the abyss.

They all relaxed at that point then tensed as they spotted something that had been hidden behind one of the Thorian's support limbs before.

A final pod that released a greenish blue Asaria that seemed to look confused.

"Hold weapon!" Sheila shouted. She raised her hand to use some of the last of her Legend. The greenish tinge hiding under the blue skin of the Asari melted away as the spore infection was purged.

"Hold weapon!" Kaiden confirmed the order. "Why?"

"She's an actual Asari, not a creeper clone that looks like one. And I just purged that infection from her," the scion replied.

"Thank you, child. I am Shiala, a servant of Matriarch Benezia. You saved me from a life of slavery in the clutches of the Thorian," the Asari said in muted wonder as she checked herself for wounds.

"Why were you here?" the dark-haired crewcut Kaiden demanded.

"Saren came to Feron to converse with the Thorian, seeking the cipher of the Protheans to unlock the beacon. There is information within the beacon that he believes is monumentally important," the blue-skinned alien explained.

"You are being awfully friendly," Liara noted coldly. "Don't you hold any loyalty to Benezia?"

"For the first time in months I am free of the indoctrination of Sovereign and I am finally my own person. Matriarch Benezia thought she could convince Saren Arterius to turn from his mad quest, but became ensnared by Sovereign. It is the strange, lost vessel that Saren discovered. It is far more than just a Prothean dreadnought that Saren thought it was. It has some sort of alien presence in the form of a sentient ship. I do not believe the actions that Benezia has been taking are what she truly wishes. Ask me any question and I will answer truthfully to the best of my ability." The Asari seemed very placid and calm, as if she had already accepted her death.

"What is Saren seeking?" Kaiden asked even as he kept his shotgun ready.

"The Conduit. He believes it will allow his master to correct a failure in its past. But it is lost and the Prothean beacon is the only link he has to it."

"What is indoctrination?" Sheila asked worriedly.

"We do not know, only that the longer you are within Sovereign, the faster its purpose becomes your own."

"Why were you still here in that pod?" Tali asked, still quite suspicious.

"I was payment rendered to the Thorian for the cipher, which Saren sought so he could understand the Prothean beacon. The Cipher allows non-Protheans to understand the beacon. It is the cultural context, knowledge and experience of the Prothean race. Without it, it would be impossible to understand anything of the Prothean message."

"Hold on, that can't be right. Sheila understood the images she saw in the Prothean Beacon," the commissioned, biotic officer protested as he pointed an accusing finger from his free hand at Sheila while keeping his other one on his shotgun.

"That is impossible. While I have learned the Cipher from the Thorian and then transferred it to Saren, no human could decipher it without that information from the Thorian." The Asari seemed quite sure of that.

Tali and Liara both looked over at the slightly shorter girl. The Quarian spoke first. "But she said she was half human."

"Yeah, about that, what is the other half?" Kaiden demanded. "Enough pussyfooting around, give us a straight answer."

Sheila looked at him for a long moment, then finally nodded. "While I'm only half human, you must remember that I fully Terran. Both sides of my heritage are from Earth. My mother is the goddess Athena."

The aliens looked confused while Ashley and Kaiden just looked incensed.

"What sort of bull shit are you trying to pull?" the sergeant demanded.

"What? My magically healing the colonists and Shiala of their infection wasn't enough? Fine, I'll prove it while making sure the Thorian is dead" Sheila glared at the older woman and then dove off the side of the ledge.

"What the hell!" Kaiden shouted even as he ran over to the edge. "Did she just commit suicide?"

"No. That was not her intent. Could that be why her mind is so different than my own?" Liara asked the others.

"Who is this Athena that she speaks of?" Shiala asked them all curiously. "Benezia had always been interested in the religious aspects of the different races she interacted with-"

Something whooshed past them heading upwards at high speed to the top of the shaft.

"What the hell?" Ashley asked as she stuck her head out and looked up.

"Hey! Keep your head and all limbs back from the edge. The Thorian might be still alive, so I'm going to drop a very large rock on it and then set it on fire," Sheila called out from above.

They were all at the edge as they saw her push a large, multi-ton shard of ferrocrete into the shaft. They quickly pulled back as the massive piece of rock crashed off several walls before it hit bottom with a massive boom.

"Did you see that?" Tali asked. "That was... easily over three tons of rock she pushed there. How did she do that?"

"The same way I'm flying here," she replied as she floated down the shaft. She was fiddling with her shotgun, working a block of incendiary ammo into the collapsed unit. "I'll be right back after setting the Thorian on fire." With another whoosh, she zoomed down the tunnel.

"I think my mind just broke," Ashley complained.

"There was no biotic field. It was only a breeze swirling around her. Is this some sort of human super-weapon?" Liara demanded of Kaiden and Ashley.

"No, they didn't know. They didn't believe. She said she was the daughter of a goddess. How is that possible?" Tali asked the two humans.

"It's myths, fables. Not real-" the sergeant replied, then shook her head. "At least that's what I thought."

"Athena. The Greek goddess of wisdom and war," Kaiden murmured.

The tap-tap of armored boots drew their attention back to the flying girl as she landed in front of them.

Shiala studied the human as she shed her helmet. "You look so young. Are you truly only part human?"

"Yes," the girl replied shortly and with little humor. "The main bio-mass of the Thorian is burning. The shaft should function like a chimney, making sure the fire doesn't go out for a long time." And even that might not kill the damned thing. Its tendrils were spread out everywhere.

"Alright. Everyone follow me. We're going back to the main part of Zhu's Hope." Kaiden waved them all on, even as everyone moved out. Then they could take the time to deal with yet another impossible thing.

* * *

Commander Toni Shepard looked at her second in command with a raised eyebrow. "You are kidding, right?" They were all back at Zhu's Hope near the pre-fav colony structures, the smell of burning Thorian lingering in the area.

Shiala bowed her head to the human. "No, I take all responsibility for my actions. Once I have given you the Cipher, my life is in your hands."

The human Spectre just blinked in shock. "Because you were mind controlled? That isn't the way I operate, Asari. If you really feel you have to make up for your deeds, then turn your future to the betterment of something like Zhu's Hope after you transfer that Cipher." Toni was terribly tired from her assault on ExoGeni's headquarters on the planet and taking out the Geth ship and most of their forces had been with it. It had been a draining mission, full of close encounters and high strung, emotional confrontations. The administrator for the colony was just lucky that she had had her fill of death already, as she had nearly shot him for his careless actions that had led to the colony nearly being wiped out.

"You would wish that I try to help this colony? Then I shall. Prepare yourself, Spectre Shepard. We shall perform the joining now." The older Asari put her hand on Shepard's pale-skinned face. "Open your mind, let our souls mingle and... Embrace Eternity!"

Toni Shepard felt the impact of the psychic images as the Prothean warnings sounded in her mind. "I'm never going to get used to that," she grumbled as she tried to sort out the images; now they made some sense.

"Does it take a lot to transfer that Cipher?" Sheila asked curiously. "You don't look nearly as worn out as Liara was when she tried to merge her mind with myself."

Shiala bowed her head. "She probably has not had a lot of practice with merging. Also the willpower and mind of the subject could make it harder."

"We should probably get more than one person with that Cipher, just in case," Alenko noted aloud.

Wrex snorted. This seemed like a large waste of time to him. At his side, Garrus was leaning against the wall with nonchalantly.

Liara and Shiala both merged for a short moment as the older woman intoned the mantra.

"Oh, that really was much easier," the younger Asari said. "I think I learned a great deal in that merging."

"Shepard is very strong of will," Shiala noted in agreement.

"I'm putting you on parole here at Zhu's Hope, Shiala. Do not attempt to contact Benezia. We don't want them knowing that we are closing in on them," Toni ordered the Asari.

* * *

They finished recovering their supplies and then re-boarded the Normandy. The lithe, white armored ship soon pulled out of the ad hoc dock of the colony and roared into space on its antimatter thrusters and overpowered Mass Effect field.

Tali disappeared with remarkable speed down to the engine room. Ten minutes later, Lt. Alenko tapped her on the shoulder nearly causing her to start in shock and terror.

"Ahh! Sorry, sir. It's just..." The young Quarian seemed at a loss for words. "My world view is all messed up."

"I think that's a given these days," the biotic marine admitted.

"How can gods really exist? While we Quarians might mostly worship our ancestors, there were ancient gods. Why didn't they save us?" Her pale eyes were narrowed in anger behind her eyes.

"Um, not that I'm any expert, but maybe they could only save some of you? And you do have all of your survivors in your fleet, right?" Alenko noted.

"So you are saying that without them... we might not have survived?" The young Quarian seemed to be thinking hard.

"Don't just blame them. The Greek gods weren't the sort to actually run around and just fix everyone's problems. In fact, they tended to be rather, um, human except in power. We have some stories in the main computers. But right now, it's conference time." He gave her a confident smile that hid his growing headache.

The rest of the 'command and tactical staff' minus Joker and Presley were already there.

"So, now that everyone who is supposed to be is here, could I get a little bit more about how you cleaned out the Thorian's mind-control, killed the alien and rescued the Asari that happened to have this cipher I now have rattling around inside my head?" Toni Shepard asked the rest of them as she pushed off the railing in front of the communication console.

Sheila raised her hand. "I used my demigod powers to help kill the Thorian and cure the colonists."

Toni just looked at her as if she were insane. "Um, what?"

"Wrex, may I use you for an example?" the young girl asked politely.

"Not going to hurt? Then fine." The very alien looking Krogan let her grab the front of his armor.

She then grunted a little bit and lifted the nearly two-thousand pound Krogan off the ground.

"Boshtet! Most Krogan are over one thousand kilograms in their armor," Tali exclaimed (and explained) in awe.

"Yeah, a bit heavy. Thanks, Wrex." Sheila set the Krogan back down.

"I think I finally realize how disconcerting that is to be lifted by others off the ground like that. I haven't been hoisted like that since I was a sprat," Wrex replied as he studied the girl who suddenly seemed quite a bit more dangerous.

"My name is Sheila; I am the daughter of Paellas Athena, who is the Greek goddess of war. And yes, that does mean I am a full demigoddess with inhuman powers. But I like to think I'm a heroine."

"Your perfect expression of genes? Athena did that? You cured all of the colonists?" Toni said as she tried to wrap her mind around the hitherto-impossible concept.

"And cured Tali here of some nasty genome bacteriophage that was causing her to be hypersensitive to irritants outside of her suit-" Sheila suddenly blurred out of Wrex's abrupt charge.

The Krogan roared as he slammed into the control panel of the conference room. "You can cure the genophage!"

"Yes." The very young girl was on the far side of the room after having leaped over the charging Krogan, spun three times into a tight roll and rotated to land face towards the threat. "And I might even be convinced to do so."

It was the hiss of pressure seals popping loose that turned everyone towards the young female Quarian. Light sensitive eyes blinked as the almost elfin beauty took a deep breath of unfiltered air. She licked her lips. "This tastes like... freedom, I think."

"I would like freedom," Wrex rumbled as his reptilian eyes focused on the girl.

Toni, Ashley, Kaiden, Liara and Garrus all watched the strange standoff. Tali was too caught up in being free from her environmental suit to note much, but Wrex was on the edge of bloody murder.

"It's matrilineal dominant. So while I could cure you, it would not cure your race. I would need to cure a mature female," the youngest person present finally said.

"Wrex, don't take this the wrong way, but curing your race might doom the rest of us," Garrus, the Turian ex-SEC officer, said in a flat tone as he narrowed his eyes.

"He is not wrong, Krogan. Your race nearly destroyed the galactic civilization. I know that personally, as an Asari, I would wish some sort of guarantee that you would not try that again," said the newest member of the team.

Wrex was huffing and breathing deeply. "I know what you are saying. But this is the survival of my species!"

Sheila waggled a forefinger at him. "Your species live hundreds of years, battlemaster. You are not in any imminent danger of going extinct. Heck, if you would just quit dying off doing mercenary work, your race would start to be net-positive within a decade. Even now, under the genophage, your mature females can have one to three viable children every two years and are capable of having children for almost three hundred years."

"How did you know that?" Liara blurted out. "The Asari have been wondering how long it would take someone to notice that detail."

"What? Wait? What are you talking about?" the monstrous Wrex demanded as he slammed an armored fist into his palm.

"It is a matter of pure numbers. You spawn thousands of young, live hundreds of years. Your females are fertile for centuries. Even with only one in a thousand being viable, you could have an effective spawning rate of four or five children every five years," the Asari explained. "What the Salarians did is give you a population growth factor near every other sapient race."

The Krogan looked dumbfounded. "So we are dying... because we are throwing our lives away?"

"Sounds like it," Toni said with a wry shake of her head. "That's going to be some bombshell you are going to drop on your people." She turned to the blonde girl. "So this is why you are so effective. Any abilities that I should be aware of?"

"Supernaturally smart, tough and strong with an array of minor healing and storm powers. Though really, being able to fly a couple of hundred miles per hour is pretty mild compared to trans-atmospheric shuttles." She gave them all a shrug that could actually be seen through her lightweight armor.

"Well, we all need to be tough and smart. And if your minor healing ability can fix things on the ground during a fight, I'm not going to argue that. Alright, folks. I've got a long distance call to the Citadel to get on with." Toni directed them all out, noting that Sheila followed her orders just as easily as any of the aliens.

"Sheila, thank you for curing me. I have to send a message to the Fleet as soon as possible. Could you explain this bacteria-genophage that is attacking my people?" the Quarian asked.

"Sure. You guys might be able to cure it yourself with only a pointer or two."


	6. Maternal Conflict

The Normandy roared to a landing at the very polished and up to date Novaria space port. Toni Shepard led her very sizeable landing party across the gangway. "All right, since having two teams worked so well on Feros, we're going to do that again. I'll lead Team Alpha, Alenko you have Beta." The red-headed spectre frowned as she considered matters. "Wrex; you, Tali and Sheila with me. Ashley; you, Garrus and Liara with Alenko."

That should keep a good enough diversity of skill on both teams. She had a suspicion that she would need a good tech; With that the N7 specialist walked over to their welcoming committee.

A very unwelcome welcoming committee, actually. It took a bit to percolate through the local private security officers that Spectres (and their agents) were above the local weapon restriction laws.

"Pleasant people," Tali said. She had her helmet back on, but was very quick to remove it when within the confines of the ship. Or at any chance, actually.

"Alenko, I want you to look to resupplying the Normandy. Maybe do some Hu-Int with the dock workers," Toni called out to him.

"Yes, sir!" Alenko called out with a sharp salute. "Come on, guys."

Toni led them deeper into the complex and to the security checkpoint. Their heavily armed presence seemed to almost set off the weapon detectors from sheer outrage.

Gianna Parasini, a high ranking assistant, met them at the security checkpoint. "Just weapon sensors. What brings the first human Spectre to Novaria?"

"I'm looking for an Asari Matriarch. Her name is Benezia," the specter said simply. "I understand she has some business interests here." The redhead placed her hands on her armored hips.

"That is correct. Matriarch Benezia actually just arrived not more than a few hours ago. She just beat a storm on her way to the Peak 15 facility. Administrator Anoleis has closed off anyone else leaving due to safety concerns." The severe looking woman gave an imperceptible shrug.

"I need to track down Benezia as quickly as possible," Toni pressed.

'Shepard, you could put a little social pressure on her with a warning that impeding a spectre investigation can result in the arrest and confiscation of assets within Citadel space. While Novaria itself is outside of the Citadel jurisdiction, the rest of their business is not,' Sheila transmitted directly to Toni's armor and from thence her implants.

"Miss Parasini, getting in my way during a critical investigation may require that I have to deal with any obstructions here... and in Citadel space. Binary Helix and Synthetic Intelligence could all be levied heavy fines with arrest warrants for any interfering bureaucrats... and assistants. My assignment is, of course, of critical importance." Cold, green eyes reminded the functionary why she was known as the scarlet terror. "So I suggest you let the N7 special forces-trained spectre decide for herself if it is too dangerous to leave on her own."

Gianna had paled (a neat trick with her dark complexion) and opened her mouth, then closed it. Finally, she spoke, "You are bluffing."

"I don't bluff. Ever." Toni Shepard made her words sound like a promise.

The high-ranked assistant nodded. "Give me a few minutes."

The squad took a few minutes to get a drink and a sandwich each before the woman returned.

"Administrator Anoleis has authorized you to depart whenever you want, though he does want you to sign a disclaimer that you won't sue him or the board for strong-arming him into leaving," Gianna explained as she held out a data pad for them all to fill out.

"I appreciate your cooperation. I'll even make sure to mention that in my report to the Council," Toni said coldly.

As they were walking off, Tali finally spoke up. "Did you have to do that?"

Wrex just laughed. "I was going to start shooting them until they let us through. You sentients are too soft hearted." He gave a leering, toad-hooked wide grin that only a Krogan could love.

"We don't have that much time," Toni snapped out. "Benezia is our best link to Saren and the Geth that attacked Eden. If she slips out because someone is afraid our transport might get a little cold, I will have their ass in a slingshot so fast they end up in orbit."

"Should I get the other squad and our Mako ready?" Sheila called out to the commander.

"Yes, let's get this done."

* * *

"Alenko, I want you to stay here with Liara, just in case they get around us. I don't want Benezia leaving the planet at all," Toni was explaining as the heavy security doors opened.

The ECRS guards were looking bored until Sheila shouted out, "Geth destroyers! Take cover!" Her supernatural senses once again allowing her to spot the ambush just before it could be unleashed.

In the large parking garage, Geth smashed their way out of their crates. Destroyers, Stalkers and even a Ghost. Everyone on the squads took cover. Shepard, Alenko and Liara all activated their biotics, knocking a few of the Geth down while Garrus and Ashley started to lay down a withering hail of sniper and assault rifle fire. Tali rapidly typed on her Omni-Tool holo implant, causing one the of the Geth to shudder as it was overloaded. Sheila popped up and fired her assault rifle at three of the Geth.

In moments, the rest of the attacking forces were dead, with only one serious casualty from the planetary security forces.

"A sucking stomach wound. He'll probably die of shock before we can get him into emergency surgery," Alenko called out.

Sheila patted the guy on his uniformed chest. "He should live now. Um, blessed be?" she said inanely.

The lieutenant just poked the bruised flesh. "Yeah. Blessed be."

Shepard turned to everyone, carefully judging. "I wish the Mako could fit more easily. With that Level 1 cold hazard outside and the distance, that means I can only take two of you," she mused aloud.

"Commander, I would like a chance to speak to my mother. To find why she has sided with Saren Arterius," Liara said carefully, her tone lending more weight with its suppressed emotions.

"Shepard, I'm not sure it's a good idea. I mean, Liara just joined up," Ashley noted in caution.

"No, I think it is a good idea. She might have some insight into Benezia's mind for why she is here and maybe a bit of leverage to get the matriarch to actually talk." The redhead scrubbed her head. She needed a tech to unlock doors if it turned into an infiltration mission. Sneaking into any base required a beyond good tech. "Tali, are you up for some cold driving?"

"I guess," the Quarian replied cautiously. "I'm sure Garrus's description of your driving is a bit hyped up."

"I can just hang on outside if you need a fourth body. This isn't as cold as Antarctica in my T-shirt," the young demigoddess said, "And I can scout ahead in places the Mako can't go."

"She's as dangerous as anyone else here," Garrus noted even as Wrex nodded his horn-toad-like head in agreement. "It's not a bad idea to get a fourth person if you can."

Toni frowned, but realized that Sheila would fill in for a heavy gunner. "Fine. Alenko, do some more human intelligence interfacing here. Maybe even play good-cop to my bad-cop and make the people here like us a bit more. Don't do anything drastic."

"Yes sir!" the lieutenant said. "Come on guys, I saw a restaurant with a bar.

Wrex grumbled as he followed Ashley, Alenko and Garrus back into the main annex area. Maybe he could get into a bar fight at least.

* * *

Sheila's armor was gray on darker gray with a mottled pattern. She triggered her implants to send a message to the people in the Mako. "I see some Geth platforms up ahead near the tunnel. Nothing you shouldn't be able to handle with the main cannon."

Tali narrowed her eyes behind her visor. "I can barely see anything at this range, even with amplification helping." Garrus had severely downplayed Shepard's driving mania. The woman was a total lunatic leadfoot with her hairpin turns and full power rushing everywhere.

The redhead had the scope on the turret zoomed in. "I can sort of see them. Let me take some potshots. The main cannon easily has the range, even in these windy conditions."

The deep report of the cannon sounded, racing across the thousands of feet to impact near enough a geth to shatter its carapace and deactivate it.

"A little to the left," the demigoddess called out.

"We're going to have to fight all the way there," Liara said as she leaned back in the uncomfortable seat. "And she's going to be warned."

"Yeah, but this is the only path out. Even a shuttle wouldn't make it in these canyons," Shepard said as she sighted in and pulled the trigger. Two more Geth exploded. She slammed the Mako into high gear around the bend and then into a large tunnel.

"So no Geth destroyers or gunships either," Sheila said as she hung on behind the turret.

The winding path up to Peak 15 was quite treacherous. Not quite as remote as a spaceship out in the void of space, but in its own way just as hostile. Especially with Geth troopers, turrets and even the odd Armature. Tali had to stop after one of the attacks to fix the poor abused Mako's armor, but all in all for the numbers they faced, they fared very well.

Then, finally over the sparking and thoroughly destroyed chassis of a Geth rocket trooper, they came to the main entrance to Peak 15. The Mako bounced into the garage like an erratic ping-pong ball.

"Garrus so lied," Tali complained. The Quarian was a bit unsteady on her reverse-flexing legs.

"It's the way the Mako handles. Just about everyone gets that type of response. Only reason they did it though is because it can go places no Grizzly can think to go or as fast." Shepard thought just a second. "Well, you can drive it like a little old grandma, but then you never get anywhere."

"The System Alliance engineering corps must be insane," Liara said, looking a bit darker blue than normal under her breather mask.

"Heads up, I hear geth mecha-servos up ahead," the young demigoddess called out as she hopped off the top of the Mako.

That got everyone's head back into the game. The swarm of varied Geth was not too tricky after they dealt with a fairly rare 'repair Geth'.

A hologram appeared, indicating the attention of the facility's VI. It started to list all the various woes and damage to the building complex. Of note were three key items that they needed to get further into the faculty.

"Seems like someone broke... well everything," Toni noted in good humor, "Come on, we need to find Benezia."

Liara's blue eyes narrowed even as all of them nodded in response.

Each section of the building complexe seemed connected with 'hamster-tubes' as some sort of security precaution.

"Shepard, this turret. It's facing the wrong way," the Quarian noted.

Indeed, the defunct mechanized gun was facing inward.

"Well, that's only if they were worried about external attacks. And not something escaping. Not a prison, so I'd assume that it has to do with very dangerous fauna or flora." Sheila was frowning at that.

"That's just great. I forgot that on most worlds you have to worry about things that want to eat you. Even if you aren't edible," Tali said even as she played with her omnitool to access the records. "Nothing has triggered these sentry guns, so we don't know what we're up against."

"Well, keep your guard up." Toni Shepard took point, switching to her shotgun for close quarters fighting.

They found a security office, but all of the computer records were encrypted. Down another short glass tube they found an elevator that took them up.

"Geth!" Sheila shouted, dashing across the ground past the Geth and their cover to flank them, leaping over thirty feet in a single bound.

Even though it was an enclosed in area, cold and snow had somehow gotten into the cafeteria. But that would have to be investigated more closely after they dealt with another mixed-squad of of regular Geth troopers reinforced with Shock and Rocket Troopers.

The moment the last Geth dropped, Tali was over by an environmental control, accessing it with her omnitool. "They shut it off to kill off any unprotected organics. Including the staff."

"Guess Benezia decided to retire everyone," Toni said in a very, very angry tone. She was going to have words with this Asari.

The daughter of Benezia nodded, feeling the same anger. How could her mother, a respected Matriarch of the Asari be so callous? This did not fit with the mother she remembered. Cold, distant but always seeking to help the Asari and the Citadel races. "Let's move on."

They moved forward in a diamond pattern, Shepard on front, flanked by Liara and Tali, with Sheila in the rear. At the top of the ramp, they spotted it. 'It' being large, bug-like creature with flower-like grasper-claws on long, waving tentacles.

"Rachni?" Liara and Sheila both blurted out.

The creature screeched and then started to move up.

"Guess that explains the turrets. Someone's playing Frankenstein," the commander called out even as she quickly shot some scurrying bugs the size of large dogs that charged out from behind the Rachni.

They splattered nastily and emitted a greenish haze upon their death.

"I don't think we want that to get closer," Tali said as she cycled her shotgun and took two quick shots. She squawked as she barely ducked a tentacle.

That was when the Rachni got a size six set of boots in its face as Sheila landed on its head. She had her own shotgun out and plugged a shot right in its main left eye.

"Let me hit it with a warp," Liara called out. She sent out the swirling ball of black energy that crackled with blue Eezo discharges as the demigoddess jumped right back over her.

The Rachni did not like that, emitting a squeal before expiring.

"So that's why Binary Helix was here on Noveria. Doesn't explain why they are trying to resurrect one of the worst boogieman of the galaxy though." Toni brushed her short red hair out of her eyes as she tried to think.

"It doesn't make a lot of sense to search for information on this Conduit. Perhaps they were being made as a bio-weapon? I mean it took all of the Citadel races with the hordes of the Krogan to defeat them last time. And the Krogan are limited by the genophage now." Tali was using her omnitool to record the scene for her records. The Fleet had to know about this.

"Saren has those Husks and the Geth. Rachni seem almost... redundant," Toni said as she thought, "Keep moving. We are probably missing a key piece of information."

With that they moved forward in a box formation, Toni and Sheila in front, Tali and Liara in back. The wind was howling furiously outside the glass tube, but it was almost silent as they took up a second elevator on the far side of the cafeteria section.

After they exited the elevator, they moved into a computer nexus station.

"That looks like the VI core," Tali noted. "And it looks like its on minimal backup power."

"Let's get that active and see if we can get more information. We might get a better map and layout too," Toni noted.

Liara helped the Quarian with the computer systems. She had always needed to perform a lot of her own repairs on digs.

"Backup power is on, so I think we might be able to initialize the main generator. And get the heat turned back on," the spacer engineer noted. Life support was something that almost all Quarians could fix blindfolded and with one hand tied behind their backs.

"Let's do it," Shepard decided.

It was a bit complex to restart the VI's control over the power supply, but well within the capabilities of Tali and Liara. Sheila was still getting the hang of 'modern' interfaces, but was only starting to leverage her intelligence usefully.

The Geth troops stationed inside the reactor room were met and defeated easily enough; Tali showed her worth as she jammed their communication and even overloaded one's systems for a few second. Near the end of the fight, Toni ended up in melee with a Geth rocket trooper and had to slam the butt of her rifle to knock it off of her and back into the fire arcs of Sheila and Liara.

"Now all we have to do is clear the 'contaminants' out of the decontamination chamber and we can take the tram to the next area. Make sure to link the VI up externally so that the Normandy can make sure Benezia doesn't pull a runner behind us," Toni ordered as she caught her breath.

"Right." Tali started typing on her omnitool to set up the programs even as they walked back out of the reactor.

More Rachni soldiers rushed in from multiple directions in a frenzy, only to be gunned down or stymied by biotic attacks. Each of the women kept their heads, unlike in crappy horror movies where they would have been overrun and then eaten.

Sheila already regretted letting Tsukyo show her Aliens for more 'cultural acclimatization'.

They traveled down several twisting corridors, down another elevator and finally out to the battered looking tram station.

"All aboard the Shepard express," Toni called out. Her red hair and scarlet armor really did give her a fearsome presence.

Tali's lavender Quarian bio-suit was rather calming and Liara wore a standard white armor that many Asari non-mercenaries favored. Sheila actually looked between the different outfits and wondered if she would have modified her own plain gray armor.

The tram (really, just a barely enclosed mag-lev train) traveled about half a mile through the howling wind as snow swirled around the mountainside. If it hadn't been so deadly, it would have been beautiful. With a whirr and a clunk, the train came to a stop at another tram station. Everyone hustled inside and up another elevator.

That was when they ran into their first humans; corporate mercenaries in armor. The situation turned tense as everyone raised their guns before the leader of the mercs, a black man in light gray armor, held up a hand to stop his men. "Who are you? What are you doing here?"

"Shepard, Council Spectre here to have a chat with Matriarch Benezia. What the hell is going on here?" the 'Scarlet Terror' asked.

"Captain Ventralis, ECRS. My men and I have been assigned as a heavy security firm to deal with issues here. Things went bad here a few days ago and we've been fighting non-stop." The man looked worn, but not quite beaten yet.

"Studying the Rachni. That's not very smart," Shepard noted as she had her team lower their weapons.

"My confidentiality clause was pretty lucrative and very explicit," the mercenary said with a smirk. "I can clear you for the Hotzone. That's where Matriarch Benezia went." He held out a pass-key card.

"I appreciate that," Shepard said as she took the security pass.

"Incoming!" one of the mercs shouted just before the chittering swarm of Rachni soldiers and workers rushed around the corner.

"Watch your lines of fire! We don't want any friendly fire," the Spectre called out even as his three squadmates charged over to the left while shots in tight controlled bursts.

"I thought they were sapient? These seem little better than maddened animals," Sheila noted as she popped up from behind a crate, gunning down two more bug-like aliens.

"We only had intermittent reports of communication, but they never stopped trying to kill everyone during the Rachni War. Even when they were driven back to their own homeworld," Liara said, then sent out a flick of biotic energy to pick up a Rachni soldier. It bounced off the ceiling and then smeared across the ground in a green and red splatter.

The Quarian's shotgun kept firing, overcoming the soldiers tough chitin at short range. None of her regular electronic hacks would work against these foes. "Bosh'tets!"

Sheila's assault rifle chattered along happily in short bursts, trying to manage the heat versus fire rate. The ECRS soldiers were fighting just as efficiently, though showing how tired they were. Her blue-green eyes noted the captain staying in the background directing his soldiers and carefully watching their team and how they fought.

The Rachni never stood a chance in the well lit corridors with disciplined soldiers holding the line.

"Okay, fall back to our normal position," Ventralis called out.

Heavy metal and hard rubber boots tromped up the corridor and into the heart of Rift Station.

Shepard led her squad behind the mercenaries into a large room that was obviously their choke point. A message then popped up on her HUD of her helmet. 'Ventralis noted tactics and gave card too easily. Suggest caution.'

The redhead scowled at that as her nagging feeling at the back of her neck suddenly had enough information to be at least partially validated. "Ventralis? You mind us taking a small break here?"

The captain of the ECRS nodded, casually wiping the sweat off his brow. "Sure. You can bunk in there with the scientists."

There was a door off the side that led to a communal area where humans and a single Elcor were hanging out.

"Shepard? Why aren't we heading in the direction that Benezia is?" Liara asked in a low voice.

"It's too easy. Ventralis should have questioned us more. Heck, he didn't even verify my Spectre status. Or he knew about it before we even got here." Toni gave the Asari a piercing look as the naive anthropologist digested the information.

Tali was quietly swearing up a storm, muffled by her full helmet. "What do you want us to do?"

"Talk to these people. Maybe look at an alternate route." She gave them all a quick salute as the System Alliance officer headed over to talk to a technician or scientist by his outfit.

Sheila decided to head over to the looming stumpy quadruped that was the size of a horse. "Hello?" She shucked her helmet so that she could use more of her senses.

"Welcoming expression: I am glad to see you," the Elcor said.

The young demigoddess blinked as she picked up his pheromones along with the higher and lower sonic range. He really was happy to see her. Of course, there were hints of avarice there too. "Oh, do you have any deals for me?"

"Surprise: You intuitively noted that I am a traveling business being? This one is happy to sell what limited stock I have and for a fair price buy some items from you," the massive being said.

"I don't really have much for sale, but Tali might have something. I think she's trying to purchase a ship for her Pilgrimage still," the young girl said. She waved the Quarian over, who was indeed interested in haggling.

Liara walked over from where she had followed the Spectre. "Sheila, we need you to verify that there isn't another loose bioweapon out here."

"Makes me glad I'm still in my environment suit." The young Quarian was almost dancing from one foot to the other in unease.

Shepard gave an okay sign as she headed out to talk to the mercenaries quickly, even as Sheila headed over to the scientist. "I understand you have a medical problem?"

"Shepard told you? Yes. We were working on a toxin from a species that was discovered out on a colony world. We were adapting it to work on other species when the Mira VI failed and we lost containment for just a minute. Several of our scientists have been exposed," the bald scientist explained as he rubbed his head.

"You made it toxic to humans?" Sheila asked carefully.

"Just as a baseline. Ah, here's Shepard." Dr. Zev Cohen looked quite pleased.

"I got access to your locked off med labs from the captain," the redhead said as she held up a different access card. "Do we need to get any supplies for your lab for the synthesis antitoxin extruder?"

"Let me send it with the instructions to your omnitool." Cohen's sigh sounded fairly authentic, but Sheila caught a hint of a catch and his eyes blinked away for just a second. "I need to get back to trying to help my fellows. Try to make them comfortable. Please, Shepard, hurry for their sake."

"Come on, let's see if this is really this easy." Toni led them down a few bends after a door, down some steps and up to a secure hatch. A ECRS soldier was escorting them down to the lab.

"He was lying, you know. I think Cohen knew they were making a new, strange poison to kill humans," Sheila said as she clenched her fists in a low voice that only the three of them could hear.

"Keelah. I think we better take a closer look, Shepard," Tali said with a nod even as her eyes narrowed behind her helmet.

Liara gulped in the background.

They entered the lab and Toni Shepard started to follow the instructions to make the antitoxin using the various chemical and nanoforges of the lab. The mercenary stayed outside. He would clear them to leave after they had been scanned and cleared by the VI Mira now that it was back online.

Sheila was leaning over another computer terminal as Tali started hacking it to get into the information.

"Nothing," the technician groused.

"Maybe. Maybe not. Let me take a look now that you have opened it up. You have to think like an academic," the young demigoddess said. She replaced the Quarian at the console and interfaced her own omnitool. Her eyes started to flick through reports at an astounding speed, going through huge amounts of research papers. "Got it. Commander, I think you want to see this. Humans were just the first test-phase. The second subject was going to be Elcor, though it looks like they had a high priority towards Asari, Turians, and Salarians."

"By the old gods, this is monstrous," the Asari in their party said.

Tali shook her armored head in confusion. "Why would they do this."

"I think this whole company is a front for unethical research into bioweapons for someone," Toni Shepard said. "So we've fallen into a pit of vipers."

The door to the lab suddenly whirred open, admitting an Asari leading a group of Geth.

Alestia Iallis smirked at the Spectre and her 'squad' that was about to die. "Thank you for secluding yourself. I only had to kill one soldier."

"Aren't you a scientist-" Toni said, trying to reason.

"I am an Asari Commando under orders from Matriarch Benezia. Kill them," the Asari said as she started to glow blue with a biotic field.

"So much for negotiating," the Quarian complained.

Sheila was furious. Each dark secret that she had found had only made her more angry about this whole situation. Her archaic, 10mm silver plated glock rose up even as she bent her legend to imbue it with a deadly power.

Alestia only had time to raise an eyebrow at the archaic weapon before it plowed through her biotic field like it did not exist and blasted her heart out of her back.

The Geth merely flashed code to each other as they communicated to capture the pistol for study, but the Troopers and single Shock Trooper were quickly gunned down.

"What was that attack?" Liara asked nervously.

Sheila gave the young Asari a steady look. "My most deadly attack. The purity of war distilled down to a single gunshot."

"It blew through that barrier like it didn't exist. Nice," Toni said. "Probably have to have the right parents for that?"

Tali just snickered at Toni's joke as Sheila nodded to the commander.

"Okay. Let's get this cure back to the civilians and then lets look at tracking down Benezia. Don't trust anyone, got it?" their commander ordered.

* * *

Toni delivered the antitoxin to the bald scientist, silently noting that she would use Spectre and System Alliance resources to keep track of him. He probably thought her some dumb chick or military grunt, who wouldn't notice the wool being pulled over her eyes.

It was the Volus Han Olar, who was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, that gave them their lead. Then they decided to follow the Volus's information on how the Geth and Asari commando had used the maintenance accessways to get to the closed off areas that Benezia was located in.

They only had to deal with a single marauding Rachni Soldier (sniped almost silently) as they moved through the barely lit corridors to another lab. This lab was larger, with platforms of various heights around the square end and a large platform in front of a huge holding tank. It looked like whoever was in charge here had barely kept on top of all the crates stacked haphazardly around.

There was one Asari in front of the massive holding tank. She was wearing forbidding black robes and even from here she looked older somehow. More cruel.

"Mother," Liara breathed.

"Okay. We're going to move to secure the target. Weapons out. She might have more bodyguards around." Toni took her own words to heart, unlimbering her assault rifle. It deployed from its compact form while the others deployed their own weapons.

Tali had her shotgun ready while Liara had her mini machine gun out. Sheila had another assault rifle.

"Matriarch Benezia-" the Spectre called out from the bottom of the stairs that led to the upper platform.

"You do not know the privilege of being a mother. There is power in creation. To shape a life and turn it to happiness or despair." Benezia did not even bother to turn towards them, still looking at the Rachni Queen inside the glass cage. "Her children were to be ours. Raised to hunt and slay Saren's enemies." At that she turned away from the massive, alien creature with too many insect-like limbs." Cold, regal eyes speared all four of them. "Liara. You can not move me to sympathy, no matter who you bring to this confrontation."

"Mother. How could you fall in with Saren in his madness?" her daughter muttered to herself, no demanded of her.

"Liara is here because she is a member of my crew," Toni said as she glanced over her shoulder at the daughter.

"Indeed." Cold blue, alien eyes studied them. "What have you told them about me, Liara?"

"What could I say? Pregnancy? Evil? Should I explain how to kill you? What can I say?" the younger Asari said, her hand motions conveying the depths of her anguish.

"Have you faced an Asari commando? Few humans have." Benezia looked down upon them from her higher platform.

"What are you doing here, Benezia? Why did you join Saren?" Toni asked in an angry tone. Her red hair and scarlet/white armor made her a striking visual contrast to the ancient Asari.

"Your insolence and curiosity is a poor mask for your fear." She raised her hand up, freezing them all. Benezia looked over to the entrance, signaling something with a small communication through her implants.

From the front entrance to the lab entered in more Asari in light combat armor. Benezia turned back and managed to dodge a clumsy rifle shot as Sheila fought against the biotic stasis field. With a snap, it broke.

"I am a matriarch of the Asari," Benezia hissed out as her biotic field switched modes, blasting out at the young girl in gray armor. "You can not defeat me."

Sheila had already dived out of the way.

"Take cover," Tali called out, retreating to a side platform and ducking behind some crates.

The entire chamber dissolved into a frenzied snarl as biotic warps and throws were thrown back and forth between the two groups. Thunder boomed as Sheila imbued her weapon with the force of a thunderclap, sending two commandos flying. The matriarch created a shield around herself, deflecting all attack for a short while.

When her last Asari backup dropped, Benezia again froze them in a stasis field. Her dark blue eyes narrowed angrily as she saw Sheila again fighting the stasis even as a second wave of Asari commandos and Geth Troopers started to move into position. A burst from Sheila's assault rifle forced her to defend herself and drop the stasis field.

"Duck and cover," Toni shouted even as she lobbed a fragmentation grenade at the clumped up Geth and Asari. She took out most of them in the single explosion.

Tali had moved back up to the front platform and spun around a corner to fire up the stairs at the matriarch, unloading her shotgun at a fairly close range. "You're a horrible mother, by the way."

Benezia's biotic forcefield had saved her, barely, but the cutting comment had her briefly up to full power. The Quarian went flying to bounce off the ceiling and three crates.

"Tali's down," Liara called out even as her warp slammed into one of the remaining commandos.

The Spectre was already over there. "Nothing a little Medi-Gel won't deal with. Be careful now."

"Right." Tali had never fought such a powerful Biotic before.

"Insects," Benezia said as she hit them with a weaker stasis even as she summoned her last reinforcements.

Sheila struck Benezia with the wind itself, breaking her biotic stasis with the unusual attack and sending her staggering. Toni didn't waste a second as the new Asari commandos and Geth Rocket Troopers were moving in the door. Another grenade was tossed at the choke point even as Tali and Liara fired their weapons into the tight cluster of hostiles.

It was almost anticlimactic when the last Geth fell in a sparking heap.

"This is not over," Benezia said even as she staggered over to the console in front of the captured Rachni Queen's tank. "Saren is unstoppable. My mind is filled with his light. Everything is clear." The matriarch had stood up tall, looking at the Rachni with zealous eyes.

"I expected better from Asari commandos," Toni quipped to the drained and defeated Asari.

"I will not betray him." Benezia turned back around. "You- You must listen. Saren still whispers in my mind. I can fight his compulsion only briefly, but the indoctrination is strong."

"Fight it. You can stop him," Sheila called out. "Saren is not unstoppable." Ichor flared down her veins, igniting the warriors spirit in them all.

"That does not help enough. I had to seal a part of my mind away from his Indoctrination, saving it for the moment when I can destroy him," Benezia explained. "It will not last long."

"So you will attack us again?

"It is a terror to be trapped in your own mind. To beat upon the glass with your hands as you torture and murder. I was powerless and nothing but a tool for Saren." Benezia clenched her hand. "He sent me here to find the location of the Mu Relay, lost thousands of years ago."

"How do you lose a Relay? They're huge," Tali noted aloud.

"A nearby star went nova and knocked it out of position. It was lost in the resulting nebula, hidden in hot dust and radiation," the matriarch explained, fidgeting with her hands.

"You found the coordinates," Toni noted with narrowed eyes, a clarity coming to her mind as she talked.

"The Rachni inhabited that section of the galaxy. They rediscovered the Relay. The Rachni Queens share memories across their generations and I took the information from this Rachni Queen. I... was not gentle." Benezia actually seemed contrite as she recalled torturing the Rachni.

"I need that information," the Spectre demanded.

Benezia walked up and handed a small device to Toni. "I transcribed the data to this OSD. Take it. Please."

Liara spoke up. "Knowing the coordinates is not enough. Do you know where he is planning to go from there?"

"Saren would not tell me his destination. You must find out quickly. I transmitted the coordinates to him before you arrived." Her voice started to crack. "You have to stop- me-" She started to move her hands and head in agitation. "His teeth are at my ear and fingers on my spine. You should-"

"Mother! Don't leave me!" Liara called out in terror as Benezia walked away from them.

Sheila raised her hand up. "I'm knocking her out, though it might send her into a coma."

"What!?" the younger Asari called out as her head turned between the two of them left-right-left in a very fast motion.

Benezia shrieked in agony as punishing wounds appeared all over her body through the darker aspect of Sheila's control of healing. The Asari started to try and fight, but staggered forward to start collapsing. Her face was swollen and blood leaked out of her eyes and nose.

"God damn! You didn't tell me you could do that," Toni said as she dashed and caught the older woman.

The young demigoddess looked down at her hand with a flat glare. "Because it is a perversion of healing. It's vile, but it was the only thing to knock her out in one shot. And we need her."

Tali tilted her helmeted head a bit to the left. "Why?"

"Because we need to study Indoctrination to know how to fight it. What if Saren has other sleeper agents? People that can get to the highest levels of governance," the demigoddess explained.

Toni wanted to be upset, but the girl had a point, even if she looked like she was going to have a mental breakdown. "Tie her up and keep her sedated then," she directed. "We'll take her back to the Normandy."

"We can take her to that medical station near the lab that was locked down," Sheila said as she hefted the unconscious matriarch.

They were only gone for scarcely more than five minutes, but when they came back they discovered something had happened.

"Where is the Rachni?" Tali asked immediately.

The huge alien in the tank was gone and the hatch on the inside of the tank on its left side was open.

Toni was still leaning on the control panel. "Gone. I freed her." Her eyebrows were furrowed in thought. "I think the Rachni might have run into Sovereign and its indoctrination and caused the Rachni Wars."

"Say what-!?" Sheila's mind was furiously churning ideas. "We are missing something vital. Why are the Reapers doing all of these back room dealings when they wiped out the previous cultures so thoroughly?"

"Less work for themselves later?" Shepard suggested.

"Perhaps," Sheila admitted. "But it seems to be more work than any culture destroying race should need to go through."

"Alright, everyone. It's time to head back to the Normandy. We've got a prisoner and information we need to work on," Toni called out.

* * *

Lt. Alenko winced at the truly angry look from his commanding officer.

"So you helped arrest a corrupt administrator, ended up invading a company and getting into a shootout with a corrupt officer on the take. All at the behest of someone that claimed they were part of Internal Affairs for the corporations that run the planet?" Toni's pale face looked livid as she stared at her Marine second in command across her desk in the CO's office/quarters.

"Um, yes sir. Wrex and Garrus both thought it would be a good idea, try to build up some good will with the local companies after you threatened them-" the officer replied as he tried to keep his face blank.

"And the fact that it happened to end up being a bloody, violent confrontation was just icing on their cake?" the redhead asked in subtle sarcasm.

"I guess I should have suspected something when Wrex thought it was a good idea." Alenko could tell that this was going to go into his official report.

Shepard gave him that look as if to say, 'No shit.' The commander stood up. "I want a full, in depth report on the situation and why it might not have been the best choice on my desk in two hours. Dismissed." With that, Toni stomped passed Alenko as he snapped a startled salute.

Outside her office, she grabbed one of the crew in the cafeteria to ask where Sheila was located.

"Down in engineering, sir. Serviceman Heffink mentioned that when he came off shift."

The Spectre nodded and headed to the heavy lift. She was tapping her toe as she waited, then walked down the ramps in front of the huge (for the ship it powered) Eezo Core.

"I don't believe the math supports that," Tali was saying to an engineer and Sheila at a console. Her helmet was off and hooked to her belt, allowing her short bob of hair free. She looked almost elfin with her pale features and eyes under the dark hair.

"The math for what?" Toni inquired.

"Oh, I was thinking of improving the efficiency of the drive core. According to Lieutenant Gregory Adams, that huge dreadnought should not have been able to just float in the air above Eden Prime. But since we know it did we have to work through how it is possible," the young demigoddess explained. "And I think I've got it figured out. The actual Eezo core is not significantly larger for a System Alliance dreadnought, it is the efficiency and precision of its use."

"And it's not possible to get that level of precision," the chief engineer stated.

"Physical evidence and scanned emissions state otherwise. The fact that the Normandy's sensors did not pick up a half-dozen dreadnought Eezo cores when they were dropping off the insertion team means such precision has to be possible. And this equation is the start of that process. I think we can boost the speed of non-thruster flight by a factor of 50 % even with just loading it onto a dedicated VI system."

"She's right, but you also need to be able to manipulate the core with a far more efficient response time. The mass effect deflector array is just too slow for real world use," the Quarian said as she pulled up more diagrams with her Omnitool.

"How standard are they?" Sheila asked. "You might have to redesign them from scratch to get the functionality you need."

"It's a totally standard technology that everyone uses," Tali replied as she started to really think about that. "I know there are miniscule incremental difference in models, but they are all within about .01 % tolerance."

The young demigoddess pulled up a very complicated model of Mass Effect fields and started to work some numbers. "Oh, now this has possibilities. Layers of actuators in a 3D lattice with power switching. Add some smart metal flexing and we're getting somewhere."

Toni coughed. "Sheila, I need you to check in with Dr. Chakwas. I was thinking you probably aren't trained to deal with the stress of combat and I want to make sure we don't accidentally give you PTSD or something."

The young girl looked surprised, then thought back over the last few missions. "I'm fine."

"This isn't open for discussion. You talk to Chakwas or I find the nearest System Alliance ship headed to Earth." The commander was not going to back down on this.

"Oh, all right. Tali, can you play with this a little bit?" the Scion asked the Quarian.

Tali gave her a thumbs up which looked odd with her three digit hand. "Got it. This is amazing stuff. How come I never heard of anyone doing this before?" she muttered to herself.

"Good. Now I've got to report in to the Council. They are not going to be thrilled with my decision." Toni was not looking to explain that she captured the matriarch to study the brainwashing that Saren (or was it his ship?) was using, nor that she let a Rachni Queen go 'on a hunch' that she would not cause another galactic wide war.


	7. Explosive Intervention

"Don't go and spend all your money in one place," Toni called out to the crowd of aliens and humans lining up to be processed and allowed out onto the Citadel.

"You're going all soft on us, commander," Joker called out from his seat. He rotated to carefully stand up, his weak and thin bones having taught him long since to always be careful.

Sheila was in the middle, wearing her gray camo armor and blinked when she saw that. Thinking back, she could not remember seeing him stand up from his seat. Ever. Her blue-green eyes narrowed as she studied him. Seeing that he was nearly crippled with osteogenesis imperfecta or as most people know it, brittle bone disease, fairly stunned the girl.

"Goddess." How could she have missed something that vital? With a moment's concentration of her divine power, she cured the merely mortal 'disease' instantly. "I can't cure the degeneration, but modern science does a pretty good job of fixing that. There you go. Your standard treatment to strengthen your bones should just start to rebuild them fully instead of just holding it at bay."

Joker stopped. He could not have heard that. "What did you do?"

"I cured your osteogenesis imperfecta. Well, the genetic part that causes it. I'm not powerful enough to just regenerate all your bones, sorry." Sheila looked unhappy at that pronouncement.

"You are saying my bones won't continue to weaken and Dr. Chakwas's treatments will start fixing things permanently?" The muscles in Joker's jaw were clenched tight.

"Yes. I'm so very sorry that I didn't see that earlier. I should have done that the first time I met you." Sheila really looked distressed.

"If you are playing with my feelings..." the pilot said angrily.

"Joker. That's enough." Toni studied everyone for a long moment. "Why don't you go get a checkup with Dr. Chakwas. Let her know what Sheila just told you. Presley, you're going to be in charge while I oversee the transfer of Matriarch Benezia."

The old System Alliance officer nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

Joker was hobbling down the corridor, grumbling about taking the stairs that curved behind the CiC.

"Hey, Garrus? Can you keep an eye on Sheila while she's dirtside?" Toni asked the Turian.

"I'm not a baby sitter, Shepard," he replied in a cool tone.

Out of the shadows of the dim CiC, Wrex stepped out, his dark red armor almost invisible in the low light. "I'll go with her. She makes things interesting."

"Um, sure?" The human specter looked a bit confused at the alien's generosity.

* * *

Sheila finished downloading the information to her Omnitool. "Thank you."

The man behind the counter shook his head. "No, thank you. That looks like a very interesting Mass Effect array design you had us crunch out for you."

"Possibly. Applying for the patent isn't really going to net me much at this point, but every little bit helps. I do need something for my own funds." That's if this adventure did not fail and the Reapers did show up. Then the array design would be totally useless as there would not be enough time to implement it..

"Well, Eezodyne is going to review making a small model test unit, but I know Gerard in R&D will be very intrigued. He may slap it together himself for his aircar. Have a great day!"

Sheila waved as she walked out the door. She did not even blink or look at Wrex as he pushed his blood red armor from the wall of the Citadel shopping center and clomped up behind him.

"Wrex? Getting paid for another babysitting job?" a Krogan yelled out as the pair stopped from going inside one of the stores.

"I'm along for the excitement," the older Krogan said with a toothy grin.

"She looks mostly harmless, even in that light armor." The Krogan in his own light-gray armor did not seem impressed at all.

"Those Batarians are looking for us, Wrex," Sheila suddenly said as she noticed them spotting her, eyes meeting across hundreds of feet distance.

The four-eyed aliens had spotted them quite a ways away. In fact, they were almost invisible around the curve of the structure.

"I thought it would be tougher," Wrex complained. "Batarians are hardly a warm up."

Sheila's eyes narrowed. They were guarding a Batarian in the center who was keeping his omnitool active. Her vision sharpened supernaturally so she could actually read some of the information on the omnitool (in reverse in Batarian). She blinked as she read the information from the hologram. "Wrex, I think he's carrying a bomb on a deadman switch." The slightly bulky backpack that looked like part of his armor suddenly took on a much more dangerou cast.

The Krogan stopped at that. "What!?" He activated the sight on his shotgun to get a bit better image. Then the ancient Krogan then swore. "Why would they do that?"

Indoctrination, she guessed? Sheila instantly sent a command through her Omnitool to emit the exact Alliance code for assault teams armed with high explosives to the Citadel's Virtual Intelligences monitoring this area.

The VI's screamed to life, setting off alarms and demanded the location of the explosives, which Sheila provided.

The Batarians started to look around in confusion even as Sheila unlimbered her sniper rifle. It folded out smoothly and she fired after only a tenth of a second. The only civilian near the group of batarians was a Salarian and her shot slammed into the shoulder while his one leg was in the air. The amphibious alien gave a short cry of pain as he was spun over the balcony into the water in a spray of alien blood.

Sheila's second shot hit the bomb-carrying alien in between his four eyes with a phasic shot, instantly killing him as it breached his barrier.

Before the Salarian hit the water, the five kilograms of high tech plastic explosives went off, killing the other Batarians. The explosion was still echoing across the Presidium district as Sheila charged forward as she slung the compressing rifle to its socket. By her third step, she was pushing off into the air, leaving the three Krogans behind her to catch up.

One of the Krogans blinked as he realized he did not see the flare of biotic energies and she was moving far faster than just lowering your mass would account for. "Huh?"

With the speed of an aircar, she swished through the expanding smoke from the blast and then dove into the water to catch the Salarian who was quite in shock at being shot and then on the edge of an explosion.

"I've got you," she called out helpfully.

"Who's got you though?" he replied in confusion as he started to think too fast.

The water swirled out of her way as the winds lifted her back up. "The winds of fate," she said with an impish smiled. "Looks like C-Sec is responding very quickly."

"I was shot!" the Salarian blathered, still in shock.

"Sorry about that, but I needed to get you away from the suicide bomber," the young demigoddess explained.

"You shot me to save my life? Are you some super sniper in Blasto's team?" the not-quite-coherent Salarian asked.

"Who is Blasto?" the young girl asked in confusion.

"Ah, sorry. Silly me. Blasto is just a Holo-Vid character and not real. How did you discover this plot with the bomb?" the Salarian asked in confusion.

Sheila set him down and then closed his wounds with a deep moment of concentration, leaving only a mere bruise in its wake.

"I would be interested in that information too," the Turian head of C-Sec, Venari Pallin, said as he leaped from an air car that was landing. The Executor was looking at the scene of devastation with narrowed eyes, his mandibles clicking once to show his lapse of self-control.

"Oh, I spotted his dead-man's trigger control on his Omnitool," she replied easily. "All better there. It will be bruised for a few days without any medical intervention."

Venari was studying information as the VI's of the Citadel gave him an overview of the situation. What he was seeing was impossible. She had responded far too quickly. Less than a minute and a half from seeing them to taking out the suicide bomber. "Who are you?"

"I'm Sheila Henderson, off of the Normandy-"

"The new specter's ship?" The Turian nodded to himself. He would not be able to hold her anyways, then. "We appreciate your... prompt response to the situation." Venari would have loved to have seen the device she used to fly like that. Probably some damned new Mass Effect drive from the humans. Their Mass Effect tech was way too good for only having had access to it for less than a century.

Sheila nodded. "I probably ought to let Shepard know that we are being attacked even here on the Citadel."

* * *

Joker was there waiting for her at the airlock. His expression was flat and troubled. "Um, Sheila? I just want to say thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Dr. Chakwas says with a few more treatments, I'll be able join everyone in the land of 'no fractures' constantly."

Wrex just raised an eyebrow at that. "That was a genetic defect?" His lizard lips had curled down in a frown.

"Mystical powers don't have to follow scientific logic," the young demigoddess noted. "Etymology, yes. Concepts, words. These have power and association. Scientific process, well, it has it's own strengths. As long as its a disease, I can cure it. Poof."

"You can cure anything-"

"Any disease."

"Any disease? Why aren't you going to offer your services to get rich?" Joker asked.

"It's crass and not holy and not respectful?" she snapped back angrily.

"Oh, like that Jesus scourging the, uh, merchants from the temple?" The pilot was backing away quickly. "Sorry, didn't realize that. Just... healing people like that is cool." Joker smiled at that.

"It is. Just not powerful enough to heal everyone. So I have to... prioritize isn't really the right word. Use my abilities wisely enough within my limits." Sheila looked quite frustrated at that.

Wrex suddenly grinned (which looked terrifying) as an idea took root in his ancient and battle driven mind. "So the more power you have, the more limited you feel?"

"I don't think that's quite accurate, but I haven't tried to psychoanalyze myself to get an exact description. I'm not exactly the introspective sort." She gave them both a shrug. She turned and headed down to the crew quarters level and her locker to put away her new designs.

She had several mods to add to her sniper rifle and a new attachment for her pistol. She held up one of the ten bullets she had made (at an obscene cost) that had a micro Mass Effect solid-state device in each one of her own design. It would detect when the bullet was twenty centimeters from hitting a target's armor or shield and then activate by the time it hit, increasing the mass of the bullets by six times. It only tripled the penetrating power of the bullet.

Which put it slightly more effective than the standard Turian mass produced. Much less Shepard's tricked out Asari pistol.

"I can't believe you are using a chemical powered pistol," Garrus said as he finished prepping his sleep pod. There were a few differences that needed to be programmed to get your sleep in only two hours rather than the seven his race needed.

"Mass Effect bullets to give it a heavier hit," she explained. "One of my most expensive purchases, actually."

"That's not cost effective," the Turian noted as he narrowed his eyes.

"Athena's Wit never runs out of ammunition. So you could say I'm cheating horribly." She gave him a grin. "Oh, I think my updated field effect deflector might actually make the MAKO tolerable. Once I can afford to get more hardware made. I uploaded it so the ships engineers can take a peek and see about installing it."

"Tali was telling me about the idea. How big of a ship do you think you can make able to land on the surface of a world?" The logistics would change space and ground combat a lot.

"And take off, allowing you to use your planetary shipyards to make bigger ships. I figure something about the three-quarters the size of a dreadnaught. And it should allow for mecha that are at least twice as large and nine times as massive," the young girl replied. Which meant she was off by at least a magnitude compared to what the Reapers could do.

"That's... impressive." Garrus realized she was not acting like she had managed a breakthrough that would be the envy of scientists and engineers across Citadel Space. "Not good enough?"

"No, not yet. Still not good enough to replicate what we know a Reaper can do. Which means there technology is still that much better."

"Kid, don't knock yourself out trying to match them in only a month. Give yourself a year or two."

"I'm not sure we have a year," Sheila replied bluntly. She slipped into her sleep pod as she loaded up some sleep rhythms to generate calm and relaxation.

Doctors orders to deal with her PTSD.

* * *

The SSV Normandy moving at full combat speed as it slipped into its stealth mode the moment it exited from the FTL Mass Relay corridor. The Citadel Council was sending their Specter to find out what had happened to a Salarian STG team that had sent a very fragmentary report.

The ship was far off its normal track, dropping into stealth immediately. It took a little extra time, but they curved into close scanner range, able to finally resolve the details they needed. Toni whistled appreciatively over Joker's shoulder. "Well, that looks like a fairly serious base. And those signals are of Geth origin, aren't they?"

Joker nodded to the commander. "Yeah, Sig-Int claims 99 % accuracy. Presley has them seeing if they can decode anything." The pilot narrowed his eyes as more information became available from the specialist fine tuning the sensors and resolving more information.

Lt. Kaiden was at Joker's other shoulder. "Anti-ship surface cannon, ma'am. Big ones. They could probably take out a dozen Normandies if they wanted to. Someone cares about this place."

"And the Salarian Tactical Group means that we really want to know what's there. Can we get a signal down to them?"

"Just a tracking signal, pointed into space. Pretty much a 'come rescue me' signal," the biotic marine told his commanding officer.

"Help me help me," Joker said in a faux-scared little girl voice. "I can probably swing a pass to drop the Mako off. But to actually land, we need to take out that air cover."

Toni nodded as she activated her omnitool. "Garrus, Wrex, prep for a hot combat drop. Lt. Alenko, I want you to do a tactical assessment of that base. I get the feeling we need to be prepared to assault it."

"Hunch, commander?" Kaiden asked.

She nodded, her short red hair bobbing with the motion as she walked out the main entrance of the cockpit, heading towards the CiC. Toni raised an eyebrow at Sheila and Tali having taken over two of the computer consoles. "What are you two doing?"

"Taking a look at what's down there in case we're in the assault squad," Sheila said in a happy voice as she flickered through screen.

Tali was using her omni-tool to filter the information down to a speed she could keep up with. "You might need our expertise down there."

"Possibly, but this is a heavy assault in the Mako. So I'm going to tap Garrus and Wrex. Besides, Sheila, you know that Doctor Chakwas has you sidelined from combat until your symptoms of PTSD are gone," the commander said as she nodded to the blonde girl.

"I'm fine. My mind is able to take a lot more stress than she can imagine," the young demigoddess countered. She was not a bad patient because of her medical training!

"You might be as strong as a heavily cybered, gene-modded marine on combat stims, but you are still a civilian. That means I have to pretend you are fragile. The only reason I'm not breaking a dozen regulations is because of my status as specter. They can literally use anyone they feel like on their teams." And had used in the past. Smugglers, bandits, pirates, assassins; all of these were fair game for a specter's team. Toni Shepard got to add 'underaged demigoddess' to the list of odd recruits.

She tromped towards the elevator on the other side of the holotank, wishing that the engineers had added a narrow ladder/stair closer there.

"Shepard? I need to talk to you for a moment," the only Asari on board called softly. Liara T'Soni Looked uncomfortable standing there. "I was wondering if there had been any news about my mother."

Benezia had been offloaded after a quick trip back to the Citadel just yesterday. The redhead stopped to consider matters. "I wish I had something, but she's going into a very secure lockdown on the Citadel itself. That's all the Asari councilor would tell me. They did tell me they did not pick up any mind control drugs or nanobots in her system. So they don't even have an idea on where to start to deprogramming her." Totally invisible mind control made Shepard's hackles rise even in light consideration. Who couldn't they get with that? Who could you trust? It was a security nightmare of the highest order.

Liara nodded, looking choked up. "Thank you. You've gone above and beyond what anyone would have expected. I know you sold it to the council as learning about Indoctrination to try to figure out a counter... but she's my mother. I have to hope that she can be saved."

"Is there anything else?" Shepard asked, already turning her mind towards the oncoming mission.

"Yes, actually. I have been talking to Urdnot Wrex. I think we might have made a rather larger breakthrough in the Krogan Genophage issue. During our discussions, we have finally managed to come to a better understanding of reproductive discipline." Liara flushed at that.

"That sounds like a name created by a committee," Shepard said in a dry tone.

"The Krogan did not really understand that almost all races curtail their unlimited reproduction. He, ah, became slightly angry at the term birth control, as that has very ugly connotation in the Krogan language." Liara shrugged her shoulder. "I'm just an archaeologist by training, but Wrex is one of the most respected Krogan alive. So the, uh, Asari Councilor directed that I should try to talk to him so that he could explain it better to the rest of the Krogan." She reached up and moved her shoulder plate to ease an itch under the armor.

Toni was nodding. "That's really a great thing that your races are doing. Are you alright?" A look of dawning comprehension lit up on her face. "Let's get you out of that armor. I'll loan you some of my civvies." Shepard was moving towards her private quarters down one level.

"What?" Liara blinked her blue eyes in confusion as she followed the officer down the curved stairs.

A quick walk past the dining area (that could be converted to a large meeting room) and Shepard was busy pulling out a T-shirt and then sweat pants. "I can't believe it never even occurred to me that all you had was the armor on your back." Toni rubbed her forehead as the tension headache.

"This is really nice-" the Asari started to say.

"Sorry, gotta go." Shepard was off like a shot to the elevator.

Liara quirked a bit of a smile at the kindness from the human. She had already managed to get a change of clothing, but she was feeling exposed outside of her armor. "Thanks, I guess. What an interesting person."

* * *

The SSV Normandy descended carefully on very low powered thrusters and its mass effect field to land on the sandy beach. Shepard's assault had taken the three gatehouses and anti-aircraft weapons, allowing the spaceship to land.

The Salarians were quite happy to see them, thinking that the Citadel had sent reinforcements. Toni had to disabuse them of that notion. She and her special squads were standing on the beach near the emergency camp.

Captain Kirrahe, the leader of this group in the STG, then laid out what was happening. Saren just created a cure for the genophage and was using it to create an army of Krogan that he was indoctrinating even as they spoke.

The Salarian's large black eyes narrowed when Urdnot Wrex did not immediately say anything. "Strange, I would have thought you would be demanding that we save the cure."

The other STG members were carefully keeping themselves out of each other's line of fire.

Wrex just snorted. "And your hyperactive imagination thinks that because I didn't say anything that I will back stab everyone to do it. It was recently explained to me that the Krogan's population problem is because we're dumb idiots that didn't run the numbers over the long term." He punched a fist into the other palm of his hand a couple of times, looming quite menacingly in his heavy Krogan armor.

Kirrahe nodded carefully. "Yes, the Krogan are actually in no danger of dying out and will continue to increase their population, albeit at a slower rate that is only about twice as much as most other species." His large eyes blinked as he continued to look at the much larger alien.

"Yeah. It was a bit of an eye-opener to discover that almost all Citadel races control their birthrates. Humans only go for three or four children on average. And supposedly only that high a birth rate because of new colonies. Turians limit theirs to about the same. I hadn't thought the Asari would have six to eight kids, but that's over centuries. Just like the Krogan can still have if we had realized it. Only have one or two survivors per spawning was horrible, but is only about half of what we would have had survive the first pre-Atomic years. And our females are fertile for hundreds of years. The only reason we are in a population decline is because we're throwing our lives away." Wrex's toad-like mouth twisted into a snarl. "And all it took was one genius little girl to point it out to us."

"Had not considered that matter, but you would be essentially correct. Accepting a reasonable birth rate would increase the Krogan's standing in Citadel Space. So you have no reason to search for a cure here." Kirrahe nodded in a very human manner.

"Besides, if it gets really bad, I'll just ask Sheila to cure it. Though she says the genophage is maternally inherited." Wrex gave the small human a rather scary smile as he looked down on her.

"You could cure the genophage?" The captain of the STG seemed horrified at the thought.

"With a snap of my fingers, yes." Her blue-green eyes stared at him unflinchingly.

Toni remembered that was how Sheila healed Joker and coughed. "We have a much bigger problem that we need to deal with. Unfortunately, the Normandy is more a stealth-recon ship and does not have anything that can take out a base of that size."

The green Salarian nodded. "This has been planned for as a last measure." And he explained his contingency plan to plant a nuclear weapon.

It appeared the order of the day was to just blow the base to high hell.

* * *

Sheila gripped the edge of the control console she and Tali were using to monitor the assault. Shepard's team was sneaking in the back and then drawing the heaviest attacks down upon them once they were inside, whip-sawing the reaction forces between different locations.

Then things had turned bad with the arrival Sovereign just as Shepard and Kirrahe's teams were finishing planting the hypercritical mass effect amplified nuclear bombs.

Even a dreadnaught did not want to be caught in atmosphere when that went off.

"-Kaiden, what do you think you are doing?" Shepard shouted across the comlinks.

"I'm assuring the success of the mission, ma'am. I'll hold them off as long as possible, but you need to get off planet as quickly as possible. I've got the bomb locked onto my life signs."

The garbled yelling of Saren would normally be music to Sheila's ears, but she was stuck up here in the Normandy and unable to do much.

"All hands, hold on. We are going to be buzzing that dreadnaught as we pick up Shepard and Alpha Team." Sovereign was lifting up and reaching for space faster than his frigate could, boggling Joke's mind. The stealth frigate spun and dodged a crimson stream of some sort of attack from the Reaper.

"Did you get that sensor read? That was a stream of accelerated plasma," the young demigoddess said to her Quarian sensor teammate.

"I did. The VI's would not have switch that feed to a full sensor dump, but I was manually able to get a full read out," the young engineer said eagerly. "We'll have to get a serious VI to look at it later.

The thump of missile launching was felt through the floor of the ship.

"I'm going to assist getting Shepard aboard. Keep on it, Tali," Sheila said as she stood up and latched her helmet on. She dashed towards the main hatch to arrive in time as it started to lower. Liara gave her a quick smile from the controls, even as she pulled out her shotgun. "Wait!?"

Even Wrex seemed surprised by her action.

That was because Sheila had leaped from the Normandy while still in descent to pick up the Salarian assault team. Her modified assault rifle started to shoot down to where Shepard, Garrus and Ashley were tied down by Geth and cloned Krogans on the second team.

The Geth heavy platform was just starting adjust to the ship coming in when two armored boots with the moment of a hundred feet of momentum slammed two hundred and fifty pounds of (armored) demigoddess onto its cranium. With impossible deftness, she flipped to land in between two of its feet. She left her rifle to dangle on its added shoulder strap to pick up the robot with a heave of her muscles and servos of her armor, knocking it on top of a surprised Krogan clone.

"Well, that's one way to handle that platform," Garrus quipped as his rifle hammered onto two more Geth standard platforms.

"We'll depart as soon as the Normandy can take us on," Toni Shepard shouted as she threw out a biotic wave at another Krogan.

"What about Kaiden?" Ashley called out. "We might have enough time now-"

"That's an order, sargent," Toni shouted out, her normally pretty face twisted in anger and self-loathing.

"What? You are just abandoning him?" Sheila asked as her rifle was back in her hand as she moved in a zig-zag pattern that the Geth were not adapting to, as it appeared to be too fast for organics to traverse. Self-diagnostics to check for hacking merely slowed down its targeting as pellets turned its CPU to scrap.

"The mission is too important to fail. The fate of civilization depends on that bomb," the commander snapped back.

The Normandy blared its thrusters overhead as Joker fought to come in closer.

Alien winds caught Sheila up as she pushed herself to limits. And then beyond, as she reached a new level of speed as the winds roared and flung her through the air at assault landing speeds.

"Move it!" Toni ordered as the ramp of the Normandy came down close enough to leap up and on to. She watched Sheila disappear past the armored walls of the base.

Lt. Kaiden was holed up in the heart of the base where the nuke would make sure to take out the cloning facilities and all of the computer cores. He had a biotic field holding the doorway. It would only last a couple of minutes, but that should allow the Normandy enough time to escape-

Plasma grenades rained down upon the Geth and Krogan, blasting them back and sending the survivors scattering.

"Drop the barrier, Kaiden! Your personal airlift is here," Sheila called out on the comlink.

"Sheila! Get out of here," the lieutenant.

"Not without you. The Normandy is lifting off and I don't intend to miss the only ride off this planet," she shot back.

"Hell, you don't have to tell me twice." He dropped the barrier and grabbed her arm even as she dropped her last two grenades on ten second timers.

His armor's servos creaked they tried to adjust to the incredible acceleration as Sheila flew through towers and dodged Geth platforms that tried to shoot them down.

"Close the damn door, Wrex!" Toni ordered angrily.

"Not until Sheila's back-" the Krogan countered.

"Well, I hope someone closes it quick. I can't accelerate to- Whoa! The Normandy's VI says that they are ETA ten seconds," Joker said over the overhead.

Shepard's special operatives all turned to look out the open ramp to see a dot streak up towards them that quickly resolved into two armored figures.

Wrex narrowed his eyes. The ramp cycled in six seconds, so he hit it five seconds out.

"Sending the detonation sequence. Twenty seconds, mark!" Kaiden shouted out.

Down below, the second set of grenades went off, killing another wave of Krogans and Geth.

"Crap. Cutting it close, lieutenant." Joker grinned as his fingers flashed over the controls, releasing the safeties. Antimatter thrusters were never supposed to be used to in atmosphere. "Hold on to your skivvies, people."

The Normandy accelerated like it was attached to a nova, screaming up into the upper atmosphere. Most of the crew was set scrambling, with only Sheila and Wrex standing steady under the thrust.

And behind them, Saren's base on Virmire vaporized as the too-huge explosion went off. It was easily ten times bigger than the any nuclear weapon Sheila had ever heard of.


	8. Ilos and War

The Normandy was docking back at the Citadel as Toni Shepard was summoned personally back to explain.

"Come on, Tali. Take it off and scare the natives," Sheila wheedled like a kid. Well, a normal kid.

"I just can't believe it, but I haven't had an attack since you did your magic." Tali finally gave in and removed her helmet, blinking as her eyes took in the unfiltered light of the Citadel dock. "My people are really looking at that data you sent them, along with my before and after. They are pretty convinced that someone messed with them genetically. There are only two races that could do it, but we can't figure out why the Asari or Salarians would attack us like that."

"You left off Sovereign. It stated to Commander Shepard that it had been trying to get back to the Citadel for centuries and it was behind the Rachni. It's definitely capable of creating something like that, especially so subtly." Sheila hmmed to herself.

"Why?" Tali asked, though as she thought over it more she had some terrible suspicions.

"Because you are a spacefaring organic, as far as I can tell."

Garrus walked up with Liara and Wrex at his back. "Shepard wanted both Kaiden and Williams with him while talking to the council about Vimire."

Sheila raised an eyebrow at all of them. "I don't get into that much trouble."

"Nah, Shepard gets into a ton more than you do, but she's already picked her duo for her meeting." Wrex gave her a smile.

"Well, I'm headed back to Ezodyne to see if they've completed their preliminary testing."

"I want to see how accurate it really is and it it really will get that much more out of it," Tali said eagerly, her pale eyes taking in the view.

Almost all the aliens were giving the Quarian a strange look as she passed them by on the corridors of the different wards. Tali seemed to appreciate the attention.

Liara had noticed the reaction. "It appears that like most Asari, the Quarians are perceived as attractive by most species."

Ezodyne had an amazing surprise when they arrived.

"Miss Henderson! Come with me!" the man behind the counter said. She was dragged off behind the counter and into an office by the normal attendant manager. His manager was there.

"Thank you for coming, Miss Henderson. Priority link to Ezodyne, office of Janice Hoilstone," the upper management said to his VI.

"So I take it you were very happy with the design?" the girl said with small smile.

The woman on the other side of the high definition 3D link answered the question. "Our technicians were playing with it and we can get at least another fifty percent improvement. Which means that any spaceship upgraded with this as part of its core can land on planets up to at least two point seven standard gravities. That is... rather a big thing. The Systems Alliance is already wanting to license it."

"I don't see why not. I can see some very tactical benefits from the capabilities-" Sheila started to say.

"I am not in the habit of selling to warmongers..."

"Was I asking to buy anything?" Wrex interjected sharply.

"There is nothing wrong in selling technology for improving propulsion for military ships. They will iron out any kinks and civilian grade versions of the technology will be developed more quickly," Sheila said, cutting off the argument. It appeared she would not be able to use Eezodyne for her other technology enhancements.

"Perhaps. I will take that into account, but I really do not like it."

Sheila blinked as her omnitool gave her a warning buzz. "Excuse me one moment." Yellow-orange holograms appeared on her arm. "I'm sorry, but I've been recalled. Please do make sure that the System Alliance's bid is dealt with fairly."

With that, she was headed to the door.

Outside the others were just finishing checking their own omnitools

"What's going on?" Liara asked.

"It's a high priority recall. Shepard said ribbit, so we are seeing how high we can hop," Sheila called over her shoulder as she trotted out.

* * *

The reason for the 'hop' was that they were hijacking their own ship because Councillor Udina had decided to lock the ship down at the behest of the Citadel Council. It seemed they did not want the Normandy setting off an incident by using the Relay to Ilos that was in the Traverse.

Captain Anderson had actually overridden Udina's lockdown and Shepard had ordered Joker to take them out at full speed.

"I feel more like a desperado than a special forces operative," Tali joked as she and Sheila went over their equipment.

"How's your work at going over Prothean technology?"

"I've been loading up on specific tools to integrate with Prothean technology. Though you should probably double check with Liara for some best practices on that," the Quarian noted. It was really weird, as they did not appear to interface the same way.

Sheila grimaced at that. "Her omnitool is in Shepard's quarters and there's a privacy notice. Ie. do not disturb."

"Liara? And Shepard? I suppose I can see that." It also fit the semi-scandalized tone of a lot of the humans when they talked to each other. Most people didn't realize that her environmental suit had audio filters and amplifiers like combat suits.

The young demigoddess had brought up some extranet data searches. "I doubt that we will have much time for archaeology, but this is a pristine Prothean site. Best to be prepared." The young blonde raised an eyebrow at the number ten bullet point, which was to bring portable power sources, as the Prothean power systems were generally only rated for about a thousand years nominally.

She sent a request to the engineering staff for at least two power packs, even if they were ten pounds each. After that, she headed up to the flight deck. Joker and Kaiden were both present, going over their course and the three Relay jumps.

"So we are ETA about ninety minutes. Pretty good for halfway across the galaxy and through the Terminus Systems. We don't have the best navigation records out there," Joker said with a smirk on his face as he turned to the biotic officer. "Oh, hey! My favorite girl that does impossible things."

"We just need to get her red and blue tights, then we can call her Supergirl," Kaiden said with laugh.

"Gee, thanks guys." Supergirl?

"Hey, I'm very thankful! Still alive thanks to you, you know. Those STG guys really know how to make a bomb. It was some sort of antimatter Mass Effect device. Much more powerful than any 'nuke' I know of," the rugged Biotic declaimed with his hands held up.

"I figure that they set up a Mass Effect field with a critical electrical charge just as the antimatter-matter explosion was released. All of the energy was superluminal for about a hundredth of a second as it smashed into the casing. It had to amplify the the power of that secondary vaporization by at least a magnitude or two." Sheila frowned at that. Since radiation was already running at the speed of light (effectively) it must have just amplified the energy of the burst.

Could that be applied to lasers? And reversely applied to heat sinks? The ideas were interesting, to say the least. Technically, you could actually store energy that way, 'freezing' it solid in time by slowing it down drastically. Though with that much of a time variance, you would have to calculate the adjustment across the entire timeframe.

"Yeah, I sent my report on back to the System Alliance, so they'll probably take a look at that," Kaiden continued curiously.

"Oh, what are you thinking of?" Joker asked. "You look like you are deciphering the secrets of the universe there, kiddo."

"Just figuring different ways to weaponize Mass Effect fields more efficiently. We may need this if the Reapers break through." But that could not be allowed at all.

* * *

Toni Shepard looked over her very mismatched 'Specter Force'. "I won't mince words here. We're about ten minutes out from probably the most critical conflict in our time. Saren has been one step ahead of us almost the entire time. We need to stop him here or he is going to use the Conduit to open the Citadel Relay and let in a force that has wiped out life for millions of years."

All of the sapients were serious looking. The two human officers and one young human girl were easy to read. The Turian and Krogan were much harder, but even she could tell they were tense. Tali had her helmet off, fiddling with it and Liara she could still feel her emotions.

"Wrex, I'm going to need everything a Krogan Battlemaster can give me. Garrus, I'll need you as my backup on my personal squad," Toni stated directly.

"No Prothean technical expert to deal with any roadblocks?" Sheila asked carefully.

Toni frowned, but had to grudgingly note she had a point. "Fine, Liara, you're with me."

"What about the rest of us?" Kaiden asked.

"Lt. Kaiden, I'm leaving you in charge here with Lt. Moreau. Try to follow his tactical advice, but you are in charge." Blue eyes pinned him before he could protest. Then he turned to Ashley. "Williams, you are in charge of Squad Two. Garrus and Tali will be your squad mates."

"I hope you aren't trying to leave me out of this for my safety?" Sheila said, sounding slightly hurt and angry.

"Not specifically. Unless you can keep up with the MAKO, you are here in the Normandy." And that was-

"Good, I'll just be mobile scouting then." At everyone's confused look. "I can keep up with the MAKO. And I'm pretty positive I'm needed with you there on the ground, Shepard."

"We'll be doing a combat drop and the MAKO only seats three properly."

"I can fly, Shepard."

"Oh. Right." Toni had known that, but it really had not sunk in tactically.

The overhead binged. "Five minutes, commander," Joker called out.

* * *

Joker proved as good as his word, landing the MAKO in the impossibly small location, then taking off to head back to Citadel space to raise the warning that Saren might attack soon.

Shepard grunted from the inertia over-wash as it jerked her, even as she pulled the trigger to take out the Geth Armature with a lucky shot. The scarlet Geth Rocket Trooper was lining up a shot, only to be sent offline as a heavy sniper shot took out its central processor.

Both of Sheila's booted feet thudded into the jungle loam. She flipped a switch to activate the heavier and more accurate Mass Effect reflector-coils for the barrel and stock of her customized Widow sniper rifle. She was pushed back two inches as the ultrasonic round thundered out, leaving a temporary trail of vaporized particles.

The effect on the heavy juggernaut Geth was devastating, hitting with the force of a ton of high explosives.

"Hmm. Have to remember not to fire that on a soft surface again," Sheila said conversationally.

Wrex had a terrifying grin on his face. "I want that for my shotgun!" He was in the back as Liara was 'driving' the MAKO while Shepard fired its railgun. He hated non-Krogan seats.

"I'm not even sure what that was," Shepard said. "But we need to focus on catching Saren before he can get to the Conduit."

The MAKO roared forward through the armored doors. As she found the inside a large tunnel more than large enough to handle the armored vehicle's span, she just kept the MAKO going at about forty miles per hour. Saren was on foot, so they might finally catch him.

The Geth Armature and three Rocket Troopers nearly took out the MAKO as they came around a sharp corner.

"Shepard, what are you doing?" Wrex shouted.

"Ambush," the N7 operative called out.

The leftmost Geth Rocket Trooper exploded as Sheila fired from around the armored bunker's corner. She switched to her regular assault rifle, firing three quick bursts into the other Rocket Trooper. She had to leap over the MAKO as it suddenly ducked back behind cover, traversing the space she had occupied.

"Friendly big tires that nearly run you over... aren't very friendly," Sheila quipped to herself, sidestepping left, left and then back to the right as she fired at the Rocket Trooper (taking him out) and then pinging off the Armature. "I could use some backup here."

Shepard directed Liara to have the MAKO break cover, firing the instant the Geth war strider was in her sights.

This was actually the way the mission went for another five minutes, blasting through two more ambushes. Things looked good up until a barrier slammed into place before them.

Liara was looking around through the limited view ports of the MAKO. "I don't see a control panel around." She set the parking mode of the vehicle.

"What about that small access tunnel?" Toni asked.

"I'll scout it out," the young demigoddess called out. She dashed up the steep incline to a room, blinking as a VI appeared and resolved into a human female form.

"I am Vigil, the VI of this facility. I have intercepted you, as you do not appear to be part of the indoctrinated forces," the machine said in a monotone manner. "I have ascertained that they are headed for the Conduit. This is counter to the wishes of the makers."

"Shepard, I've got a chatty VI that says it blocked us off to talk about the Conduit. I guess."

"Well, try to get the information then and get the damn door open," she shot back on the com channel.

"I'll leave the channel open so you can listen," she responded.

"What is your purpose of coming to Ilos?" the VI asked.

"We're here to stop Saren and his master Sovereign. What is this Conduit?" Sheila asked.

"The Conduit was the apex of engineering of the Prothean Empire. It was the first new built Relay to showcase their power and understanding of the Precursors." The VI might as well have been talking about the weather above in the sweltering jungle.

"It's a relay? So where does it go that is so important?" Sheila instantly intuited.

"The prototype relay was to be unveiled at the seat of power, the Citadel-"

Sheila blinked at the glowing yellow figure. "That wasn't a model of a Relay? It was an actual Relay in Presidium? All this was to sneak a strike force into the heart of the Citadel?"

"I can only conjecture that this Saren is attempting to undo the remote access block that the Protheans of this facility installed so that the Reapers can summon their entire forces through into the heart of the current government that is in charge of the Citadel," Vigil explained.

"What? How would they do that?"

"The Citadel is a trap. It is a special Relay that leads directly from Dark Space where the Reapers wait. After the Protheans were wiped out, the few surviving scientists of this facility stayed in cryofreeze for centuries as this facility was so secret it was not even recorded at the Citadel. They finally determined to take a one way trip through the prototype Relay and reprogrammed the main computers of the Citadel so that the Reapers would not be able to activate the Dark Space connection."

"Shepard, did you get that?" Sheila asked over her com.

"I did. We need to catch up to Saren and stop him. This is do or die time. Get back here ASAP." If this VI hadn't stopped them, they would have caught Saren by now. Toni Shepard was sure of that.

"I will give you the command codes necessary to lock off the Citadel so that the Reapers can not be summoned. Then I will perform my last duties and shut myself off."

"Wait, we need more information. Like how you can detect the Indoctrination," Sheila said even as she verified she got the codes from Vigil.

"I am sorry, but that is not possible. I am draining the very last energy reserves just communicating to you. There are secrets here that I am tasked with protecting."

Sheila was never so glad that she had brought the high density energy packs. "I have two energy packs that should be able to run a VI core for at least two months. Even if we stop Saren, we need to counter Sovereign's Indoctrination. And we'll need any information you can provide."

High level directives battled. If the offer of power packs had not been included, it would have decided to shut down. But the Protheans had given the defeat of the Reapers a slightly higher rating in the command structure. "I agree. A servitor drone will arrive to take the power packs to install them."

The blast door dropped back down into the ground in front of the MAKO.

"Sheila, get down here ASAP," Shepared ordered.

"I'll catch up. I'm going to get as much information downloaded as I can on Indoctrination. Go, I'll be right behind you. Come on, Vigil, give me the basics on how to make scanners that can detect the Indoctrinated," Sheila said to the VI even as two squat, buglike droids took the proffered energy packs.

Liara just gunned the engine.

"Don't stop for anything," Toni ordered. "Wrex, get ready for the fight of your life." She had the main cannon on the MAKO ready and pulled the trigger the moment she saw the first Geth Armature.

The young demigoddess blinked as her omnitool gave her a warning about approaching capacity. "Got it." Then she burned as she pushed herself as never before, a literal blur of motion as she ran back down the corridor.

The MAKO's cannon roared fury as Geth moved to block their route or moved to disassemble the power conduits.

"It's still active. Take us right in," Toni shouted out.

Their vehicle shook from combined fire of Geth Rocket Troopers, Juggernauts, Pyros and even Hoppers. They suddenly detected an anomaly as something passed the MAKO on the last bit of the ramp in a blur, clocked at over five hundred miles per hour and disappeared through through the active Conduit Relay.

That delay allowed Liara (with Wrex whooping in her ears!) to crash through the battle line and punch it right through the aperture.

They appeared halfway across the galaxy as the transit disabled the MAKO's Mass Effect field as it was not rated for space travel. Armored tires skidded on metal until it slammed into a wall with a crunch.

"I got to say, Liara, you sure do know how to show a Krogan a good time. You sure I can't steal you from Shepard?" Wrex asked as he stood up and then kicked out the door of the MAKO.

"No!" the Asari snapped back, glad they had some medigel to help with her head pain.

Sheila skidded to a halt in front of the door as the Human and Asari pulled themselves out. "There are Geth here in force and there's some sort of battle going on in space." She pointed to the area where the normal Relay was located.

Toni was accessing her omnitool to try and make sense of what was going on. "Got a link from the Normandy. Joker, can you read me? Status update."

"Commander! Good to hear from you again. I'm here with the Alliance Fleet. We just got word that the Citadel is being attacked by a Geth Fleet. Looks like they got their asses in a sling."

Kaiden gave Joker a stern look. "Lt. Kaiden here-"

"It's worse than that. Tell whoever is in charge that if we don't stop this attack that this is a Code Shiva situation. I repeat, Code Shiva. Shepard authorization Romeo-Tango-Niner-Sierra-Bravo-One-Four. Again I repeat, Code Shiva."

"Shit, are you kidding? Acknowledged, commander. Transmitting to Admiral Hackett," Joker said even as his fingers flew over the control console. With that, he set in motion the biggest military action of the System Alliance.

The massive Relay the Alliance Fleet was next to started to crackle as it started to shoot each ship to a different quadrant of the galaxy. They opened fire upon arrival on the rear of the Geth fleet, sending them into a confused sprawl as they tried to adjust to the abrupt change in the tactical situation. They had fairly smashed the Citadel Fleet of Turian ships and the Asari dreadnaught Destiny's Ascension.

Kaiden was reading the console on his side of the cockpit. "I'm reading a Alpha-One priority military distress signal from the Destiny Ascension-"

"Alpha-One? Isn't that for heads of state?" Joker said as he rolled the Normandy left, then right to avoid the attacks of Geth Heavy cruisers.

"And the only heads of state here should be the Citadel councillors." Kaiden narrowed his eyes in thought.

"Probably trying to evacuate on the biggest and baddest ship, which normally is the Destiny there. Sovereign already kicked her ass pretty hardcore and the Geth are just finishing her off. We going to let them burn?" Joker asked.

"As tempting as that is, Joker, it could incite a war even if we won here. And that spinal cannon it has would be very useful if they could get it back up against a dreadnaught like Sovereign. Priority flash to the admiral, recommend diverting to rescue the Destiny Ascension for tactical and political reasons." Kaiden's hands finished tapping the command into the holo interface.

The System Alliance fleet spun into action, hammering the Geth cruisers to keep them from mission-killing the massive Asari dreadnaught.

"What's Sovereign doing?" Joker asked. "It just blew through the lines and docked at the Presidium." His eyes narrowed. "I'm getting movement from the Citadel."

"Evade," Kaiden ordered.

"It's closing up. I didn't even know that it could do that." Joker had followed the order, just in case the Citadel was about to open fire.

The massive space station had suddenly turned into an armored, enclosed tube that shrugged off any incidental kinetic hits like they were nothing.

"I guess Shepard is on his own." Kaiden did not like that at all.

"Yup. We just have to deal with the horde of omnicidal robots that nearly wiped out their creators," Joker said sarcastically. "Focus on the fight we're in, lieutenant."

"Right."

* * *

"Elevators locked down, hordes of xenocidal robots and a dreadnaught parked on top of us. This is great!" Wrex shouted as he plowed through two standard Geth Troopers, knocking them down.

"We're on the clock people. We need to get to the Council Chambers, locked down the Citadel Relay and save civilization. Move it!" Shepard shouted charged down an access corridor, trying to get past the masses of Geth troops swarming inside the Citadel.

Sheila's gray, camouflaged form popped out from behind cover, taking out a Geth juggernaut. "I can't believe Sovereign just bulled his way past an entire fleet."

"To be able to do that does imply some very serious technological superiority," Liara noted absently as she sent a biotic field to fling a hapless Geth Rocket Trooper out into the void above them.

"This is taking too long. Sheila, can you fly us to the central spire?" Shepard ordered as she threw a plasma grenade.

The young demigoddess reached out with her power and nothing responded. She froze in shock, only reacting to get behind cover as a Geth Trooper managed to deplete her upgraded forcefield. "I can't. Why- Oh, no air or wind. Sorry, can't fly. And with magnetic boots, I can't run super fast."

Liara just blinked at her in astonishment. "I guess that makes sense."

"I need a solution to get us to that spire as fast as possible," Shepard snapped out. "Not excuses."

"Saren is still fighting the remnants of C-Sec." Sheila's eyes had zoomed in like some bionic telescope while looking in through some windows. She blinked as she spotted an airlock near the main council chamber, her helmet's rangefinder listing it off at just 300 meters. "I might have a solution. Sending a targeting program to your omnitools. Load it into your armor's hud immediately."

"This isn't going to mess up my custom set up, is it?" Wrex demanded suspiciously.

"You can purge it after I throw you at the airlock. It's a marine emergency program in case you spaced. I've calc-ed the centripetal force of the Citadel and everything."

"You are going to throw us to the airlock?" The Specter thought furiously for three breaths. "Download and do it, everyone."

"I'm not a sprat," Wrex complained.

"Wrex," she warned back.

"Toni, you're first," the young demigoddess called out.

The scarlet wearing N7 nodded, deactivating her magnetic boots. She vaguely remembered from training that you were supposed to try and hold yourself still with your arms and legs straight down. More than humanly strong fingers grabbed her armor and then she felt like she had just been kicked by a mule as she flew towards the airlock. She rotated by extending her arms out and then pulling it in.

The targeting reticule started flashing in her hud for the pistol she had equipped. She snapped a quick shot even as her HUD started to count down five seconds. She curled inward as she reactivated her magnetic boots while the world spun around again on a vertical axis.

With a clank she heard through her boots, she hit the wall just thirty feet away from the airlock. "Ouch."

Wrex slammed into the wall closer to the airlock in a sprawl and then Liara landed lightly with a small biotic field right on the far edge. Toni was not even sure how Sheila managed to actually land on the airlock, but she assumed it was part of her inhuman grace she used at times.

"Inside! Move it people," Toni ordered harshly.

The airlock seemed to take forever to cycle and about halfway through the door opening, Sheila cocked her head slightly as she heard the tread of the metal feet running towards them, though far off. "I think Saren spotted us coming and is sending a blocker force."

"Out the elevator and to the Council Chamber. We might actually be able to intercept Saren if we hurry now," the Specter ordered even as she readied a plasma grenade. She stepped out and turned towards the sound of clanking metal feet. Judging how far they were by the shadows and lights around the corner, she fired the grenade so it landed right in front of the first Geth.

Sheila had her magnetic boots off. "Shepard, I'm going to run ahead to the command center console and try to lock out Saren and Sovereign."

"Go! We're right behind you," the redhead shouted as Liara blindly fired a warp into the explosion and smoke.

Sheila disappeared in a blur down the corridor the other way.

* * *

Saren tromped into the Council Chambers, gunning down the last C-Sec officer as his squad of Geth Troopers fanned out. "Finally," ex-Specter Turian said. His cybernetics glowed softly through his skin even as he walked over to the control pillar.

The Protheans had to make this be done in person, disabling the connection in a way the Keepers would not repair. The ex-Spectre stopped as the light from outside changed.

The Citadel was opening up, which should have been impossible.

The warning across the Geth network was almost too late, as Saren dove out of the way as Shepard again interfered by shooting at his back. "What does it take to kill you?" Saren demanded as he fired his Spectre issue rifle at the three people.

Toni, Liara and Wrex had taken cover quickly as Saren depleted Wrex's heavy duty with two center-mass shots.

"I need to pry those weapons from his corpse," Wrex declared.

"Later, after we win. Liara, let's try to hit him with a double-warp. Wrex, charge in afterwards to finish him off. Ready? Three, two, one... go!" Toni called out on their encrypted tac-net.

They started their warps, but the Turian was a blur of synthetically augmented muscles and was halfway across the room before Wrex could even start to move and the warps could strike. The heavily modified rifle depleted Wrex's barrier as the Krogan attempted to charge him.

"I have been improved by Sovereign. I am superior, needed and useful to the Reapers," Saren declared. "When the Reapers cull everyone else-"

"They will finish you off last so you can yell and scream as they finish this cycle," Sheila interrupted as she stepped out from where she had been working on the center podium. "By the way, we win."

A massive, hidden Mass Effect generator exploded only a kilometer away from the spire. The gout of blue fire washed over the sky above them.

"What was that? What did you do?" Saren demanded.

"That was the primary power source for the hidden Relay that would allow the Reapers to invade here," Sheila informed, stretching the truth just a bit.

"It's over, Saren." Toni stepped up and out from behind the metal plant holder. Her rifle was still pointed at the Turian

"No, I have to save my race-" the ex-Spectre snarled out. He was carefully measuring the direction of the crossfire he suddenly found himself in the center of.

"You are an idiot," the demigoddess said to interrupt him.

"She's right. If the Reapers ever found any race useful in the past, they would still be around," Toni stated in simple, hard terms.

Saren stopped to scowl. "That's a lie."

"Actually, I know of only one race that the Reapers haven't totally wiped out." Sheila's blue-green eyes were quite cold and serious. "The Keepers. And they are genetically modified slaves to repair the Citadel. Every other species has been wiped out for hundreds of thousands of years."

"I was- I was so sure. It seemed the only possible hope." Saren seemed stuck as he realized that he had been used.

"It's not too late for you, Saren. We can use your help to stop the Reapers. To fight them," Toni called, trying to reach the soldier. Even if he hated humans-

"No. It is too late." Saren raised his pistol for the last time and then blew out his own brains, the only escape he could think of.

A terrifying sound shook the spire, transmitted through the metal by induction from the raging Reaper Sovereign.

Kinetic hits rained down on Sovereign, washing over its black hull like rain as the Citadel and System Alliance fleets kept firing

"What the hell is that thing made of?" Joker asked as he weaved the Normandy through the swarms of ships.

Most of the Geth had been routed or were not fighting effectively any more. Even so, Sovereign seemed unstoppable.

"I'm setting the analyst team to try and find a weakness. Something, anything," Kaiden said from beside him. He had to smile as he heard a Quarian swear word from down the corridor. It appeared that Tali was already at 'her' console like she and Sheila normally did during space combat.

"Looks like we might need the Destiny Ascension just to hurt it. This is impossible. We're throwing enough firepower to take out two dreadnoughts," Joker complained as he avoided a stream of red energy that the black, aquatic-looking enemy fired at them from a tentacle.

Inside the council chambers, energy was burning away Saren's flesh, revealing a cybernetic horror that arose like some sort of demented undead. It was fast, fluid and dangerous as Sovereign took direct control, the implants glowing a golden yellow.

Liara barely got her barrier up as she ran along, only for it to drop instantly from the powerful weapons that Saren's husk-body still had. She spun around a pillar as her armor failed to stop all the power of Saren's custom pistol. "I'm hit, but Medigel is sealing the wound."

Wrex roared a Krogan battlecry and tried to overrun the glowing synthetic only to find himself knocked away in a sprawl. His shields were flickering at the second shot and failing when Sheila shoulder-slammed into Saren's body with the extra power of a thunder clap. The synthetic bounced of a pillar and then into the corner. Toni changed the area she was throwing her plasma grenade to target him. She then switched immediately to her assault rifle. "Don't let up and watch your fire lanes."

All four people members of the squad kept at it, overheating their rifles, pistol and shotgun, then switching to a backup weapon. Saren's cyber-corpse jerked and stumbled to keep fighting far past what should have been possible.

With his shotgun and pistol overheated, Wrex just tossed as his pistol away and charged again with a louder roar. A biotic push from Liara kept the corpse unsteady just long enough. This time his target was unready for his attack and over a ton of armored Krogan crunched home, breaking the drone in half.

The feedback disrupted Sovereign's self-control and the sapient dreadnaught lost connection and control for only thirty seconds. Its finely tuned barriers, nearly invulnerable to the fleet, lost cohesion even as the onslaught continued non-stop. Kinetic rounds and disruptor torpedoes finally broke through.

Sovereign, caretaker and vanguard of the Reapers, exploded with stunning force.

Girders groaned and creaked as the central spire of the Citadel tried to weather the damage. Sheila had her senses spread out as much as possible. Wrex would be better than the rest of them in his corner, so she tackled Toni and Liara and braced themselves into a closed doorway.

"Good thinking," the redheaded Spectre said. She activated her omnitool. "Joker, Kaiden? Give me some good new."

Tons of metal shifted and crashed.

"You got it, commander. We have smashed one Reaper and its making some pretty fireworks from the left overs," Joker said as he took the Normandy into one last barrel roll between two arms of the Citadel.

"I take it that Saren is dead?" Kaiden asked over the coms.

"Committed suicide. Then his body turned into something like a husk, but I think it was under Sovereign's control," Toni admitted. She winced as a major beam took out the central platform they had been fighting on earlier. "But mission accomplished."

* * *

It was a week later that the Normandy was released from the repair dock. The four councilors of the Citadel actually all showed up, though the Turian councilor looked like he would rather be anywhere else. Retired Captain David Anderson looked uncomfortable in his new and expensive suit.

"Councilor Anderson," Toni said with a fond smile as she shook hands with him. "I'm glad the Systems Alliance agreed with my recommendation."

"You are the hero of the Citadel and humanity's first Spectre. So you have a bit of clout," Anderson replied with a grin. "I wish you had not offered me up on that altar, actually." He gave a mock glare at his protege.

"Yes, yes," the Turian councilor said, interrupting. "Are you ready to start the hunt for the Geth. According to the transit records, they disappeared into the Terminus Systems."

"We would appreciate not antagonizing any of the polities out there, but they are aware that we are on wartime footing to defeat the Geth that attacked us," the Asari councilor said.

"I think the human idiom is more carrot, less stick," the Salarian said, his huge eyes blinking quickly.

"I don't intend to start a war, councilors, but I do intend to finish this one with the Geth," Toni promised sincerely. She looked very professional in her System Alliance black and gold dress uniform.

The Salarian's eyes blinked as he spotted a lithe blonde pulling a crate on a magnetic repulsor. "Ah, Sheila. Must thank you for breaking up misunderstanding between Krogan and Salarian."

The Asari matriarch nodded also at that. "Indeed, that has helped defuse much of the situation on Tuchanka. The Clans were quite surprised when we asked them for what assurances and obligations they would be willing to provide for a reasonable increase in their fertility. They had thought we would always just say no."

"Which is reckless and endangers peace," the Turian councilor declared emphatically, making a small chopping motion with his three-fingered hand.

"I think it gives them hope for a better future, hopefully working alongside all of the races of the Citadel," Anderson said, trying to smooth things over as a more moderate on the council.

Sheila gave them all a small smile. "Sounds like an interesting time."

"You are not staying on the Normandy?" Anderson asked.

"She's headed back to Earth. Something about trying to find her way out of the rabbit hole," Toni said with a grin.

"Yes, that's it exactly. Hopefully the touchstones will allow me to get to somewhere I'm supposed to be. Spatially and temporally. See you around, Shepard."


End file.
